Falmouth Massachusetts: Governor Admitted  Wind Turbine Screw Up 2019

 
Massachusetts Governor Baker admitted to Congress in February of 2019 this about the Falmouth wind turbines:  “Sometimes when something doesn’t go the way it should go, everybody blames the concept,” he said. “Well, sometimes "we just screw up" the way we actually implement it and it makes the concept look bad.”
 
Representative Tom McClintock, of California, took Gov Baker to task over townspeople couldn’t bear the noise, the constant flickering light as 400-foot windmills turned. Baker admitted the state failed in some respects due to how and where the turbines were sited.
 
The hearings were held by the House Committee on Natural Resources.
 
Massachusetts public safety never a consideration when siting turbines
 

Unfortunately, it often takes the court to inspire public policy that will protect the many. Massachusetts courts shut down the two Falmouth town-owned wind turbines forever in June of 2017.
 
Public safety in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and twenty-one other communities was never a consideration when siting wind turbines between 2008 and 2013.
 
Falmouth installed its two industrial megawatt wind turbines in 2010 and 2012 and never divulged each turbine generates110 decibels needing a set back of 3000 feet for just one wind turbine. The Massachusetts courts however got to see first-hand emails, memos, letters warning the town prior to the installations the two turbines operating at the same time could emit noise levels up to 113 decibels. Falmouth has a third private-owned wind turbine nearby also the same Vestas V-82 type 1.65 megawatt wind turbine. There are no studies of all three wind turbines operating at 110 decibels each.
 
Two turbines at 113 decibels equal a chain saw at three feet or a rock band playing 24/7.     
 
There were no sections in the state semi-quasi agency produced wind studies that highlighted public health and safety. These same public officials had known since 1987 in Boone, North Carolina about the two different types of wind turbine noise measured in decibels and low frequency or what is called infrasound. 
 
Massachusetts state officials masked the low frequency aka infrasound under the term "human annoyance" in their reports. 
 
The KEMA Inc report done for a General Electric wind turbine in Falmouth did say 99 homes could be affected by noise. Of important note is General Electric refused to place a single wind turbine because of residential setbacks and ice throw. The town went forward installing a Vestas wind turbine twice as loud as the GE turbine. 
 
The indisputable facts show the state released mayhem on at least twenty one communities with noise and shadow flicker to achieve a state land-based wind turbine agenda by the year 2020.   
 
Politicians and appointed officials of these renewable energy state agencies after the court shutdowns today claim the impacts of shadow flicker and noise were unanticipated or mistakes were made in the original acoustic noise predictions despite written warnings prior to the installations.
 
By 2013 the turbine installations' impacts of shadow flicker and noise had caused major tensions and health woes in communities where turbines were initially welcomed due to the omission of known warnings.
 
In others, gearbox and mechanical failures are testing taxpayers’ patience and stretching municipal budgets. The private-owned Vestas wind turbine in Falmouth has already suffered gear failures but has been kept low key by wind turbine advocates.
 
The Town of Falmouth is attempting to sell or move its two wind turbines also the same type of gear-driven wind turbine designed in the late 1990s.
 
Falmouth failed to file special permits and hold additional public hearings which would have left appropriate distances between the turbine and nearby residences to reduce or eliminate potential sound issues.  
 
The failure to hold additional hearings and file permits was a ten million dollar mistake and the legal fees for the town and wind turbine victims living around the turbines could equal the purchase price of both turbines.
 
Falmouth Town Meeting in November of 2019 approved 2.5 million to move the problem out of town and continue the noise described as torture. The town still owes 3.5 million at 2 percent on an American Recovery Reinvestment Act loan.
 
The Massachusetts Clean Water Trust will require that the Town enters into an agreement to operate Wind II at a level that permits it to continue to qualify as an "energy efficiency" project in accordance with DEP requirements for the duration of the Loan.
Falmouth Wind Turbines No Longer Energy Efficient Shut Down By Courts June 2017 
Crime Scene: Federal ARRA loan being used to run the day to day operations of town government 

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Comment by Frank Haggerty on June 12, 2020 at 11:13am

Takings Implications of Offshore Wind Energy Development

Falmouth wind turbine case could satisfy Richards test for "Takings"

June 12, 2020


Comment by Willem Post on June 12, 2020 at 9:00am

Hi Frank,

You have been documenting this expansive, state-induced fiasco, by idiot career-bureaucrats (who are know-nothings, and who could not hold a decent job in the private sector) from the very beginning.

The malfeasance of Falmouth municipal leaders is breathtaking.

I am surprised the people did not riot in the street, to show solidarity with the victims, as they do for BLM

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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