On 10-14-14 the Brown County Board of Health declared the 2.5 MW wind turbines at Duke Energy’s Shirley Wind project in Brown County, Wisconsin, to be a “human health hazard”. That declaration was based on the Board of Health’s five years of experience, research, and review of the evidence. On 12-15-15, Chua Xiong, now-resigned director of the Brown County Health Department (a separate entity from the Board of Health) declared that the Shirley Wind turbines are not a human health hazard. That declaration came after being in her new position as Health Director for only ten months, and after she conducted an extremely exclusionary review of the evidence and research submitted to her.
Shirley Wind has received global attention, and as such, Chua Xiong’s determination has global health consequences. Wind energy proponents are already using, and will continue to use, Chua Xiong’s determination to justify the permitting of more irresponsibly sited wind projects like Shirley Wind. Health Director Xiong’s misguided determination will be responsible for widespread harm to public health if not challenged and ultimately dismissed as lacking validity. Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy (BCCRWE) has produced a document (provided below) for the purpose of providing evidence that demonstrates that Chua Xiong’s conclusion regarding wind turbines and health concerns lacks validity and that her conclusion was based on a very flawed process by which submitted evidence was
selectively reviewed and inconsistently weighed, or ignored altogether. The document demonstrates that Xiong’s evidence-review process was fraught with a multitude of failures of due diligence and that her resulting conclusion is without merit.