Clean Wind Power Noisy, Neighbors Say

VINALHAVEN, Me. -- Wind energy may be politically correct but neighbors of three giant turbines here say their noise is unbearable, the The New York Times reports. Residents of this small community are among the growing number of people across the country decrying wind energy’s noise pollution. Lawsuits have been filed in Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Massachusetts to fight what neighbors call the miserable hum of clean energy.

The New York Times said that at one wind power site, when the surface wind settled, a “throbbing, vaguely jetlike sound cut though the nighttime air.”

“Nobody in the area could believe it. They were so loud,’’ said Art Lindgren who lives near the Maine wind turbines.

More than three dozen families in DeKalb County, Ill., have filed a lawsuit to have removed 100 turbines near them. A judge has refused to dismiss the case. The issue has become international: In France, an appeals court ordered eight wind turbines to shut down between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. so neighbors could sleep.

An expert told The New York Times that a solution is not to build the wind power plants so close to people.