Farmer 'needs Prozac to beat turbine stress'
A farmer living close to a wind farm said he had been put on Prozac anti-depressants to help him deal with the effect of noise coming from the massive turbines.
Nick Williams, 53, has been prescribed the drug by his GP after suffering insomnia and depression he blames on noise from towering Fullabrook Wind Farm, several hundred yards from his Christmas tree farm in North Devon.
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Nick Williams has been put on Prozac anti-depressants to help him deal with the noise from Fullabrook turbines
He said the noise from the 66mW farm, which is yet to operate at capacity after extensive testing, since it was opened last October, has left him a mental wreck, unable to sleep because of the "thudding" noise and liable to burst into tears for no reason.
Noise testing at the site is not due to start until next month, but Mr Williams said: "I have been made to feel like a prisoner in my own home, which is wrong.
"I go up to Bath to see my daughter and I don't want to come back here. And this house was my dream."
Mr Williams says his doctor has now prescribed him Prozac, under its medical name of fluoxetine, to help him cope with the noise.
Fullabrook Wind Farm consists of 22 turbines, each 360ft from the ground to the tip of the blade when vertical and producing 3mW of power. Local authority North Devon Council announced this week that ESB, the wind farm's owner, had agreed to undertake noise monitoring at 12 sites, an increase from five test sites originally planned. A company spokesman said: "We want the monitoring to be as full and robust as possible, and are therefore happy to increase the number of sites where monitoring will take place."
2 Comments
by WelshMountain
Monday, February 13 2012, 9:50PM
“The more of these giant industrial wind turbines are erected, the more the sound problems are becoming publicised. Here is west Wales, a development of 10 turbines at 363 feet high are causing major problems to people living as far away as 6km. And the County Council can do nothing as the old fashioned ETSU guidelines to which the developments must conform, do not measure the low frequency noise and amplitude modulation that causes people the noise nuisance. A so called sound expert said that people suffering from the noise should be given psychiatric help. People who say "I stood right underneath a wind turbine and heard nothing much" are probably correct, but further down wind they certainly would be able to hear it!!
The Welsh Assembly Petitions Committee is coming to Carmarthenshire to see this wind turbine development at Alltwalis, and letting the public tell them their experiences of the sound effects on their lives. We hope this may lead to distance regulations being brought in but it will not help those with wind turbines already built.”
by accom
Thursday, January 26 2012, 1:19PM
“I honestly didn't know this, I thought they were silent like those little plastic ones you have blowing in the breeze.”