Falmouth Town Meeting asks Selectmen to “Take Down the Turbines!” (Mass.)
Jan 26, 2013
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“Falmouth residents: ‘Take the turbines down!'”
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—Sara Mannal, Falmouth Patch 1/24/13
Nearly one hundred Falmouth residents attended a Board of Selectmen meeting last night to peacefully protest and speak out against the ongoing operation of three identical industrial wind turbines in the Falmouth Industrial Park, pleading with selectmen t [sic]
The public was invited to provide comments at Wednesday night’s meeting in Town Hall related to various options that will be presented to voters at town meeting this spring.
Prior to the meeting, dozens of residents held a candle light vigil and prayed that the selectmen would not only hear their voices, but also take immediate action to stop what they described as a nuisance and danger to their health.
Nearly 50 residents voiced their opinion during the public comment session, with almost every comment opposing the future operation of the turbines.
Eric Sockol’s home at 819 Falmouth Highway is just 1,000 feet from Wind 2, a town-owned industrial wind turbine. Sockol passionately urged selectmen to remove the turbines immediately. He said Falmouth has an obligation to protect the health of its citizens, despite any economic consequences that may come from tearing down the turbines.
“Understand there are some issues that are more important than simply economics,” Sockol said.
Richard Bowen’s home also neighbors one of the town-owned turbines. Bowen said that the town had somehow made a great error by installing the turbines and feels town officials are not willing to own up to the mistake. Bowen also urged selectmen to take the turbines down.
“Do the right thing, please, for our sake,” Bowen said.
John Ford, a resident living on Blacksmith Shop Rd., said neighbors of Wind 1 and Wind 2 have lost peace and quiet and good health. Ford suggested using solar panels as an alternative to wind power.
“I request that you join your fellow residents and neighbors and decide to remove the wind turbines and replace them with people friendly photovoltaic arrays,” Ford said.
Judy Fenwick does not live near the turbines, but she was a member of the working group that was organized by the town to develop options for dealing with the wind turbines. Fenwick told selectmen that after much deliberation she believes that the health of Falmouth residents should be placed above any financial repercussions of removing the turbines.
“I ask that you don’t be counter dependent and that you ask the state for help before you ask the Falmouth taxpayers,” Fenwick urged.
Residents who were unable to make Wednesday night’s meeting can still submit a statement to the Selectmen’s Office by 4:30 p.m. Monday January 28th. Statements can also be emailed to townmanager@falmouthma.org by the deadline.
Comment by Bill Carson on 01/26/2013 at 8:09 pm
Let’s Make A Wind Turbine Deal
The Massachusetts semi quasi state agencies are the state’s economic development agency for renewable energy. The state has a renewable energy goal of 2000 megawatts of renewable energy by the year 2020. Everybody makes mistakes including semi quasi state agencies. The siting of commercial megawatt turbines in Falmouth was a mistake.
Originally a 660 Kilowatt turbine one third the size of the current 1.65 Megawatt was first proposed . The semi quasi state agency owned two 1.65 Megawatt turbines that were being held in a warehouse in Texas for years and had become a political embarrassment.
The Town of Falmouth got offered a deal it couldn’t refuse and took it . Today it looks like a Trojan Horse.
Here is my proposal :
A. The semi quasi state agency takes down the turbine and places it in a better location away from residential homes. The agency replaces the wind resources with photovoltaic’s, solar, heat pumps, geothermal or the equivalent in renewable energy megawatts at no cost to the town.
B. The semi quasi state agency, the owners of the turbine, provided the resources and studies done to have their turbine sited in Falmouth . The agency is in the process of awarding a 100 million dollar bid on February 15 ,2013 to build the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal for ocean wind turbine projects.
C. The taxpayers of Falmouth pay nothing. The semi quasi agency uses the proceeds from the sale of the turbine to provide the Town of Falmouth with other sources of renewable energy at no cost to the town. In this scenario the neighbors around the wind turbine gets relief, the town gets one or several renewable projects at no costs and the semi quasi agency gets the turbines operating some place else.
The semi quasi agency keeps going forward with its goal of 2000 megawatts of renewable energy by the year 2020. The semi quasi state agency is funded by the renewable energy tax on every residential and commercial electric bill. They have the resources.
Comment by Marco Bernardi on 01/27/2013 at 4:34 am
I am not a citizen of Falmouth, but if so this would be my comment:
Dear Sirs,
We live for over 18 years beside wind turbines. Distance to my homestead is 960 ft – 1260 ft. IWe are overlooking more than 130 wind turbines in a radius of 15 km.
Tinnitus, started less than 1 year after the turbines began operating, heartbeat dysfunction, insomnia when the turbines are operating, tussive irritation (consequence of the Vibro acoustic desease) and more serious health problems are our daily companions.
But the worst is the cancer of my wife. This Non Hodgkin Lymphoma is the result of the long term exposure of infrasound. Wind turbines emit infrasound in the same range in wich the mucosa of the lower body has its eigen frequency.
The result of resonance in the eigen frequency range can be seen in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs
Forget studies. They are all short term researches. Non of them last 18 years.
Dismantel the existing turbines. This would be the greatest service to your citizens.
Thank you for your attention
Marco Bernardi
Hinter Neuendorf 11
D-25554 Neuendorf-Sachsenbande
Comment by Andreas Marciniak on 01/27/2013 at 3:55 pm
Marco Bernardi, I’m with you on this, Take them down and recycle them all, all around the world there nothing but trouble,my Family got sick my friend got sick and our town is falling apart, and worst of all is most people effected by Turbines ! don’t even know about it, they all think, “just having another bad day, or bad night.This will be a shock wave, when it’s all out in the open.