THE Senate’s recommendation urging the federal government to investigate the health effects of wind farms comes as no surprise to an energy company.
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Infigen Energy’s Jonathan Upson said he found the Senate’s recommendation that was pushed by Senator Stephen Fielding unnecessary and inaccurate.
“Senator Fielding has never been a supporter of our industry,” Mr Upson said.
“I never expected the recommendations to be 100 per cent in support of the industry.
“They have bend over backwards to accommodate the minority of people concerned.”
The recommendation comes after a number of residents around Australia voiced their concerns about impacts wind farms could potentially have on their health.
Many of the residents were eager to see the government fund an investigation into flicker effect and infrasound created by wind farms that is believed to cause mild to serious medical conditions.
Mr Upson said he was aware of the concerns but felt there was no validity to these medical theories.
He said the company had gathered many credible and peer-reviewed reports showing that there was no evidence that linked wind farms to health problems, but many people had become unnecessarily worried as a result of “media hype”.
“This seems to be the only concern we hear about now,” he said.
“No one is worried about the visual impact or the acoustic impact if they are really close to the turbine, they’re just concerned about health impacts although there’s no medical evidence.”
The comments come after a group of Flyer’s Creek residents told the Central Western Daily earlier this week they were pleased to see the Senate’s recommendations passed.
They had expressed their own concerns about health impacts with a proposed $200 million Infigen windfarm being developed in the area.
Infigen Energy has eight wind farm projects in the pipeline throughout Australia.
erin.somerville@ruralpress.com