In a letter to Shetland News, Westside resident Sally Huband described how she has been forced to sell her house in East Burrafirth to escape subaudible acoustic emissions from the Viking turbines. She detailed her – so far – unsuccessful attempts to get the industry to act on the issue.

She highlighted the health damage she has suffered:

I wrote to David Thomson because I have been injured by the subaudible acoustic emissions of the Viking wind farm’s turbines. Both tinnitus and hyperacusis with pain, a condition in which sound causes pain, are life changing. This barotrauma and accompanying vestibular system disruption (nausea and loss of balance) are bad enough but becoming sensitised to the acoustic pollution of turbines is torture. We were forced to sell our home.

She also highlighted the inadequacy of the Shetland Community Benefit Fund whose chair confirmed that this fund would not cover:

those of us forced to sell our homes following acoustic injury and harm, or to access funds for respite accommodation should we be unable to sell our house, or for loss of income should we be made so ill that we are unable to work.

Sally also explained how Community Benefit Buy-Ins are being used to leverage community support:

Community buy-ins to wind farms operated by companies like Statkraft are little more than community benefit funds on steroids, silencing mechanisms for their toxic acoustic pollution. The community is complicit in their own harm and the parasitical power company and their profits are protected by this community buy-in shield. It’s a next level honey trap in financial form.

Importantly she explained the inadequacies of the developer’s complaints process:

The SSE complaints process is designed to protect their profits and not our health. There is no transparency and no end point. SSE cannot, of course, admit that their machines are toxic because they built so many of them so very close to our homes and to one school. Do not engage with SSE. They will witness your harm, make you document it, and will still refuse to switch their turbines off at the times when they are most dangerous.

Sally also highlighted the inadequacy of the turbine noise regulation (ETSU-R-97) which has been designed by wind industry acousticians to omit the particularly toxic subaudible acoustic pollution.

Takeaway

This is an important contribution to the discussion about harms from sub audible acoustic pollution. Sally’s letter shows how developer’s are cynically using Community Benefit Funds to sway public opinion, though she failed to mention that such funds only arise from the enormous profits achieved through public subsidy support. She also demonstrates that rectifying the problem after the turbines have been made operational is currently impossible, so the time to object to Scout Moor 2  is now!

Full Article

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2025/02/14/injured-by-vikings-subaudible-noise-pollution/