A possible criterion for wind farms

Opposition to wind farm noise is not abating and shows no sign of doing so in the future. In a January 2017 paper in Sound and Vibration, Hessler, Leventhal, Walker and Schomer come together to report that independently they have come to about the same conclusion for a proper threshold of wind turbine noise. The same A-Weighted criterion has shown to come up in a variety of independent ways. This paper is not for pie in the sky desires for no sound. Rather, it attempts to recommend a criterion to use for determining the limits of wind turbine noise. This criterion is based off of the data of four independent sources: (1) CTL, (2) ANSI S12.9 Part 4, (3) Michaud et al. (2016), and (4) a State of Minnesota Department of Commerce survey of criteria set in various foreign countries and provinces. This paper recommends the use of A-weighting and a 24-hour Leq as the metric. 36-38 dB is recommended for the criterion.