It took a while to figure out what was going on after the facility kicked in [started operating]…We were told there’ll be no issues. Wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t hear it, the whole deal. It was turned on and it took about two days to figure out what this god-awful noise was…Because when it started, you really couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. It was encompassing, surrounding us.

We’ve talked to people who actually have moved out of the house…That’s how come I became worried about the health effects...I just wanted to know what was happening. Here we are...[x] years later, and they’re [IWTs] here. It changes, it takes up a time in your life when you really should be, we’re just starting retirement. It should be better.

They [family] all know that I can’t live in my house…How I’m being affected…that I want some remedy…They said…“Why didn’t you go and see the wind companies?” I said, Why would I want to go to them?...What I’ve got to do...is build another house to live in, so I could still live on my property…There’s no remedy…I want some remedy,... [no one] is doing anything about it…just blowing us off with no reason at all.

…turn them off when they’re bothering us…someone needs to relocate us and for a replacement value.

We probably gave 14 years of our lives to this, and a lot of money. People don’t understand how it can be that way…There’s a lot of people that have contributed far more than I ever did, a financial cost as well…We started to learn a lot more about turbines…We continued to fight with various groups for many years, then it became very obvious that the turbines were a go. The [former Premier of Ontario] won a majority, so we knew that the turbines were now reality…Probably the first real concern was the health issues, some of the things that we had seen.

Both my husband and I were wary of building a new home close to wind turbines…we learned more and more about them.

The way the noise regulations are set up, the way the noise compliance test…to me it looks like it’s designed deliberately to not show outside of compliance. I understood a little of acoustics. I knew that if the noise was low frequency in nature, then it would penetrate the walls quite easily. They just dismissed it to us all.

Does that mean that the wind company gets a free pass to be out of compliance? Or whenever it’s gusting…it’s too cold…when the leaves are on the trees. It would be so simple…where we just said, “It’s really loud right now”…and then they said, “Yes, it appears that they’re out of compliance.”

From the Medical Officer I get all the studies saying nothing’s wrong and it’s in your head. He originally told me that if I contacted him again it would be harassment…Somebody else of the Ministry of the Environment has also sent me the same studies from Health Canada about there being no direct impacts. Nobody’s discussing indirect.