MPs to sleep under wind turbines
AAP July 17, 2013, 4:16 pm
Three South Australian MPs plan to spend a night in an abandoned house north of Adelaide to gauge the impact of wind farms.
The home at Waterloo has been vacated by the owners, who Liberal MP David Ridgway says were driven out by the nearby wind turbines.
They had complained that the turbines were having a serious impact on their health, Mr Ridgway said.
The opposition agriculture spokesman will join Greens MP Mark Parnell and Labor MP Russell Wortley in spending Wednesday night in the house.
They are all members of a parliamentary select committee investigating the economic, social and health impacts of wind power.
The committee is holding hearings in the Clare Valley, north of Adelaide, this week taking submissions from the local council, landholders and community groups.
Mr Ridgway said that by spending a night in the abandoned house it was hoped the trio would experience what the home owner had experienced.
"It could be like car sickness, which affects one person but not another," he said.
South Australia has more wind farms than any other state, with the turbines once universally seen as clean and green.
But Mr Ridgway said wind power was now increasingly questioned with some claiming the turbines were noisy, unsightly and a danger to aerial firefighting.
