Great.

Beth Harrington is my colleague and we thank you for this opportunity. We've been working on wind turbine health risks for about seven years together.

Some of you may ask yourselves why wind turbines should be considered under Safety Code 6. We are finding that people exposed to wind turbines are also complaining of the many symptoms and the issues that have been described by the previous speakers. Wind turbine facilities do emit electromagnetic energy and radio frequency because of their infrastructure and operations. For example, under the infrastructure and operational mandate, such facilities use remote monitoring and Wi-Fi technologies for communications, have databases, and interfaces, transformer stations, and so forth. From a community exposure point of view, communities are exposed to these energies.

The scale and the scope are surprising because they monitor and use the communications network 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and back in 2010 one of the wind turbine manufacturing companies indicated that globally there were about 6,000 remote operational centres established. Since that time five years have passed and more and more approvals are occurring in Canada, in Ontario, and we're expecting more to come up, so the exposure is going to be higher. This is the reference there for that particular slide.

We provided in a submission a number of references and links, and if you go on this particular link you will see a large number of infrastructure modules and methods for how wind turbines are using the infrastructure and the communications network. We don't do solar ourselves. However, one of the methods...there's a solar panel up on the right-hand side, and they are also monitoring through the infrastructure.

We have competing claims about whether there's a risk or not, and this is of concern. It's very difficult to get the message out, but one study that was conducted in Ontario supported the official position of Health Canada that it didn't consider any precautionary measures because the levels of exposure, at home and at school—and incidentally, turbines are going around schools—are low and there is probably no conclusive evidence of an issue.

We also have other competing claims where while it's acknowledged by the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health that the emissions do occur at these facilities, the emissions for EMF are not a significant amount.

We're seeing a lot of interest generally in these types of emissions that we're talking about. Of interest is that we know that insurance companies are risk adverse. There's a very interesting insurance process for engineers and architects where it appears that in terms of liability, electromagnetic fields for these two groups are not being underwritten. Therefore, we can see there's some interest there.

One of the consultants who does quite a lot of work for wind energy development notes that these fields can damage human health, so that's an industry acknowledgement. Also researchers here in Ontario have indicated that some people get electromagnetic wave exposure through poor power quality and these people are adversely affected. The ones who are electrically hypersensitive are at risk.

I'd like to talk a bit about the general population exposure. This has already been very well done by Dr. Bray, where the Women's College Hospital is looking at this, and her very elegant presentation spoke to this. We have general population exposure and we haven't even considered the wind energy facilities yet.

I'd like to move a little bit to show the potential risk factors through excerpts from the BioInitiative working group, because they talk about risk factors and susceptibility to exposures for children, especially if they have had maternal exposure. As well, they have a very strong statement that there's little doubt that the exposure to electromagnetic low frequencies causes childhood leukemia.

Another excerpt has been addressed by Dr. Bray that when we have children exposed, we don't know if that carries over into adult life. I think that needs to have vigilance and long-term surveillance as well, because the impacts could be significant in affecting cognitive and behavioural control.

As well, there are potential risk factors for women in the workplace, where extremely low frequencies can be a risk factor for breast cancer over a prolonged period of time. I think we would all be concerned about that type of exposure. Another exposure risk factor is the potential damage to the DNA.

These are pretty serious and significant things.

The Biolnitiative working group did not speak about wind turbines per se, nor does Safety Code 6. However, the working group did identify another concept of labelling and informed choice, which has already been raised. They speak about the smart grid and those technology tools that I've just talked about. They know that there's little labelling, little or no informed choice, and that people cannot get away from the source easily because it's quite pervasive in our society now. We agree, my colleague and I, that there's been a failed government process here to help people.

Of interest is that in California they have started to look at disclosure of risk. One of the utilities there, Con Ed, has distributed a brochure that addresses the scientific uncertainty and the opportunity for people to reduce EMF exposure if they can, so I think we're starting to see disclosure of risk.

With respect to industrial wind turbine facilities, there's a lack of disclosure, no warning labels at all. In fact, any risks to health are frequently dismissed. Those who step forward and talk about this when they've been exposed to wind energy sources are really dismissed and have a hard time carrying their message forward.

One other point is that non-participants—that would be people who have not signed agreements to host turbine facilities on their land—are exposed to these energy sources without consent. So we have that issue to face as well.

I think the prevention model has been overlooked in this case. World Health Organization does speak and advocate that if we have a reasonable possibility that public health is at risk or would be damaged, we don't need full scientific proof before taking some type of action. I think that's required now.

The advocate for children is quoted in the Policy Interpretation Network on Children's Health and Environment, and they also support that we don't need full scientific proof before taking action. We have that, not only from the children's perspective but also the general population's perspective.

We would like to recommend that industrial wind energy facilities, and possibly solar facilities, should be included under Safety Code 6. This is based on the discussion around the operation and infrastructure. As I briefly described, we have a 10-page briefing note with references available for the committee. We also have an expected increase of facilities, with more exposure going to happen. Risk factors are being explored and discussed, so we're on our way to looking at that. There's an opportunity for the committee to capture the aggregate of all possible exposures.

Our recommendations are that investigation of Safety Code 6 be broadened to include industrial wind energy and solar facilities. While we have to be concerned about the general population at large, we would like to see priorities given to the fetus and neonatal exposure, as well as babies, children, youth, the elderly, and those with pre-existing medical conditions or disease and special needs. I think we all are concerned, as a society, that our youth are possibly at risk and vulnerable to long-term effects. We also would recommend that requirements for public disclosure about risk factors be established. I think this will go a long way.

My final wrap-up is that we have to understand that these facilities are not installed in urban communities. They are being installed in rural communities, and no attention is being paid right now to these emissions.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Transcript

Discussions (0)