Chronic Noise from AltaLink’s 500kV Power Line

David McIntyre’s letter to AltaLink CEO Scott Thon, expressing concern about the unrelenting noise from AltaLink’s 500kV line in southwestern Alberta, has recently appeared on Responsible Power’s blog and in the Pincher Creek Voice (Responsible Power).

This well-written letter clearly describes the constant, loud, disquieting, humming, unrelenting, monotonous, disruptive, disturbing, wailing, screaming, maniacal, snapping, and popping noise (McIntyre’s adjectives) emanating from AltaLink’s high voltage line. He describes how this noise has degraded many of his hikes and those of other hikers in the Livingstone Range area of southwestern Alberta, even at significant distances from the line, and he wonders what the impact of this noise is on wildlife.

McIntyre also expresses concern about the increasing number and length of access roads to service AltaLink’s power line, and how bulldozing for such roads negatively impacts native grasslands and endangered forests of limber and whitebark pine, including propagating the spread of problem weeds.

RETA strongly encourages its readers to read McIntyre’s entire letter at Responsible Power. See RETA Fact Sheet No. 18  for more information on the visual and auditory impacts of overhead high voltage lines, and see this link for more information on the environmental impacts of overhead lines. Buried high voltage power lines create no noise impacts, very limited visual impacts, do not kill birds, and require significantly narrower rights-of-way. See this link for more information on the many benefits of burying high voltage lines.

~ by RETA on March 21, 2013.