Wind companies fatten their pockets at the expense of our health and quality of life — Luann Therrien

Would like to thank First Wind and Sheffield, Vermont for providing my family with too many sleepless nights to count. (sarcasm)  Our family is just one sacrifice of big wind and government. Who can we hold responsible for our torture? The wind companies are backed by the government.

We are being made sick (sleep deprivation, feeling sea sick, so on) and the powers that be could care less. Wind companies pockets are being fattened from tax payers pockets so they are not about to admit there is a problem and make things right.

My name is Luann Therrien and I live in Sheffield with my husband Steve and our two children.

Have no idea what we have done or who we’ve done it to to deserve what we are being put through. But I do know that no one at the Government level has reached out to us to try and help us. We keep reaching out and mostly the response back has been mostly silence.

We have contacted-First Wind-numerous times. Our Governor, Senators, Congress, Meadows End- a company that owns land where some of the turbines are sited. The town of Sheffield and The President of the United States.Mostly the response is-So sorry for your situation, but there is nothing we can do. Or We cannot set precident by helping you. So basically…. SUCK IT UP!

Why hasn’t the Department of Health talked to us? Why haven’t they reached out to us to get a better understanding of what is happening to us and others living near turbines? Why has their response been as far as we can tell, nothing?

No one wants to take responsibility. Apparently we are to blame for choosing to live where we do. We consider ourselves to be hearty people. Living off grid and in the middle of no where is not easy but we love where we live.

We have lived at our home in Sheffield, for 17 years. The land has been in my husbands family since the 70′s.

Before the turbines were built, we felt we did not know enough about Industrial Wind to have an informed opinion. We did not oppose them being built. We did not oppose the many inconveniences during construction that comes with a project this size. We did not oppose the project, not until it was up and running and creating noise. Creating noise that unlike what the wind developers will try and make you believe- IS distinguishable above natural sounds. I have never heard anything in nature make a repetitive whoosh whoosh whoosh sound for up to five days straight. And the only thing I have heard sound like a jet flying overhead, except for these wind turbines, is a jet flying overhead. This has now been going on for over a year.

To have no one believe or understand just what we are going through is like being constantly beat down. Having people say we are making it up or worse yet putting the blame on having children. Until you live with what we are dealing with you can not understand what it is like to walk in our shoes. People have openly scoffed at us because they paid a visit to a project and think they have the slightest clue what it is like to live day after day, month after month beside a project. One person had the nerve to say they had visited a project and the noise was no worse than their dishwasher. Well, I guarantee if your dishwasher was to run day and night you’d shut it off before five days were done.

We attended Sheffields Annual town meeting and were shunned by many. By people who had previously been friendly with us. Had one person tell me every Sheffield resident is benefiting equally from the projects wind fall. That is all well and good. But not every resident is suffering equally.

It has been said that with all power comes sacrifice and problems. The problem is, my family and other families are the sacrifice.

In order to stop the continuing damage to our health and sanity we will have to sacrifice the land where we have lived, loved and planned to spend the rest of our lives. But when it comes to sacrificing our dreams or ourselves there really is no choice. We may have no choice but to sell out for whatever we can get just so we can move. Not only will we have to give up the land that we love but also at a reduced price.

Most of the time we can hear a mechanical humming, wind direction does not matter. The noise for us is at its worst when the wind is coming from the South/SouthEast. When we are not getting the worst of it, other families are. The prospect of more storm systems blowing up the coast is about as frustrating as the noise itself. Know it’s coming and not a thing we can do about it.

My husband is feeling desperate because there is nothing he can do to protect his family. I’ve been feeling more agitated and working on unreasonable. Not a good combination with two little ones.

Since November both my husband and myself have been prescribed antidepressants. I honestly had no idea just how bad I had gotten because it came on gradually. Didn’t realize how bad I had gotten until one day my son said something that made me laugh out loud. It was then the realization hit me that I had not done that in a long time and have not done much since, even with an increase in my medication. I used to laugh all the time, dance with my children and make up silly songs. I want to do these things again.

I have a constant ringing in my ears that can be very distracting. This is caused by infrasound, the sounds and vibrations we cannot hear. My husband has been feeling so bad that he is currently unable to work, his doctor has pulled him from his job. It’s impossible to work when you cannot concentrate due to lack of sleep, a constant pulsing in your head like a painless migraine and have the constant feeling of a head rush no matter what you are doing. He wakes up startled during the night in a panic state and can not go back to sleep. Being pulled from his job being unfit to work means he cannot collect unemployment. We have been living very frugaly off of our income tax return. This money will run out, not sure what we will do then.

Both of us have a lack of concentration. Many days we have this odd pressure in our heads. Can feel the pressure in our foreheads, cheeks even in the front teeth with a feeling of pressure as if something is pressing on the bridge of the nose.Many mornings we wake with the feeling of motion sickness.

We know if we do not feel well, our children do not feel well. They cannot tell us verbally, but they do in other ways. We see a noticeable change in our son’s behavior. He goes from being a normally active 3 year old with an attitude problem to an unreasonable uncontrollable active 3 year old with an attitude problem, that doesn’t end because he goes to sleep. Most nights both of our children have restless nights and both regularly cry out in their sleep. We have no idea what kind of permanent may potentially be being done.

We are getting so tired of feeling like hell everyday. We feel as bad when we get up as when we go to bed. Frustrating isn’t even the right word to described how it feels to get up in the morning already feeling tired, angry and agitated.

Our children deserve better. We deserve better.

We went through hell to have our children. It certainly was not my choice to have our first child at 40. We went through loss (one at five months along), tests, and operations. On our fifth try we had a healthy boy, and we now have a one year old baby girl. And instead of the joy of raising our babies, there is a feeling of being helpless and hopeless.

Helpless to protect our children from the Industrial Wind Project that has been built behind our home. Unable to protect them from the constant noise, annoyance and sleepless nights with all the side effects that go along with

We have contacted First Wind. Their only worry is that they are in compliance, and cannot set precedent by giving a homeowner money. We told them we would need $100,000 to $150,000 to move a doublewide home (low end) onto a lot in Derby. This was not to buy us out, it was to move us away from their 16 Industrial Wind Factories. They say they are in compliance and everything is fine.

Some pro wind experts say 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile is too close, other studies say 1.5 miles is too close. The 16 turbines are all from just under 3/4 of a mile (5 are under a mile) to just under 2 miles from our home. The human factor of living with the constant annoyance of these machines does not matter to the wind companies.

Humans are being used as experimental guinea pigs and this is extremely unethical to impose a health risk on a community, without rigorous tests first. Turbines are huge industrial machines whose effects on humans have NOT been proven and therefore should not be placed next to human habitation until extensive tests are carried out.

You don’t have to be a scientist or researcher to know, that putting a site of industrial size turbines next to humans is not an ideal situation for anybody. We need more research before any more sitings close to humans are carried out. No human should have this inflicted on them, we wouldn’t impose any other sort of industrial machine next to homes but wind turbines are all about politicians showing “green” credentials and large companies and wealthy landowners making fortunes out of tax payers money, consequently ordinary people are being trampled over in the wind rush.