Attorney General Maura Healey 2016 Falmouth Wind Turbine Letter

To : Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey
Boston, Massachusetts

Commercial Wind Turbines : Violations of the Public Trust

Re : Land based commercial wind turbines vs residential health, property rights and assault and battery on the environment.

Attorney General Maura Healey is the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In addition, her office is an advocate and resource for the Commonwealth and its residents in many areas, including protecting consumers, combating fraud and corruption and protecting civil rights. The office also covers criminal cases that include public corruption, financial fraud, and other violations of the public trust.

Massachusetts over the past eight years has declared an actual real war of fossil fuels. The choice of weapons was the commercial megawatt turbine. Sadly residents in as many as twenty one communities have become collateral damage in the war on fossil fuels taking health and property rights with no compensation creating a second class group of citizens in Massachusetts. This is a violation of the public trust.

It is clear to the most casual observers aka the taxpayers that the state of Massachusetts has made a colossal health and financial fiasco placing commercial wind turbines too close to residential homes. The original plans were for over 2500 commercial wind turbines by the year 2020. There are only around 100 wind turbines placed in Massachusetts. The state has quietly switched to Solar as a method to reach the renewable energy goal of 2000 megawatts of renewable energy by the year 2020 only 4 years away.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center continues to use renewable energy tax receipts to pay for litigation in Falmouth to prolong and extend the poor installations of the Falmouth wind turbines so they can be counted in the renewable energy goal of the year 2020. The MassCEC is using the court system to outspend the victims of the poor siting of commercial wind turbines.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has become a stepping stone for those that wish to enter the private commercial wind turbine business fields. One hand washes the other.

Embarrassed state politicians and the news media followed the agenda of the former Governor Patrick administration pouring valuable state infrastructure money and federal stimulus money into commercial wind turbines projects including the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal Boondoggle.The hurricane gates only have a legal clearance of 120 feet in which wind turbine “jack up” barges don’t fit.

At the trial of convicted former Massachusetts House of Representatives Speaker Sal DiMasi who is currently serving an 8 year federal corruption sentence former Governor Patrick admitted he Gov Patrick was “Sally Reynolds.” The former governor was thought to have used the fake email name “ Sally Reynolds “ to contact wind turbine contractors and avoid any Freedom of Information Act requests.

Starting in1985 research supported by the US Department of Energy, Dr. Neil Kelly and his colleagues identified wind turbine impulsive low frequency noise. The wind turbine infra sound and vibration produced “ Human Annoyance “ within neighbors homes. The studies took place in Boone North Carolina.

The Town of Falmouth conducted studies to place a single commercial domestic made General Electric 1.5 megawatt wind turbine. The turbine had a high noise rating of 103.5 decibels of regulatory noise. General Electric refused to site a single turbine because of its own setback criteria to property lines.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, MTC, in 2006 today known as the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, MassCEC, was in possesion of two foreign made commercial Vestas V-82 wind turbines in the 1.65 megawatt class of turbines they could not sell even at auction.

The state agency in feasibility studies warned prospective buyers about two distinct types of noise. One is” regulatory” measured in decibels and the other is “human annoyance” or what Dr. Neil Kelly also called” infra sound.”

Did the MassCEC drop the noise warning reference to two distinct types of noise “regulatory” and “human annoyance” from commercial wind turbines studies in the Falmouth ?

Did the MassCEC offer one million dollars in advance to the Town of Falmouth to purchase the first wind turbine called Falmouth Wind 1 ?

Did the Town of Falmouth hide a noise warning letter for 5 plus years from August 2010 that Vestas the manufacturer of the wind turbines warned their turbines generate 110 decibels of noise more than double the smaller General Electric wind turbines ?

Did Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel in a letter to Karen Ellemann warn the simple answer to low frequency noise from wind turbines is that it is not technically possible to do so ?

Did a PowerPoint Presentation delivered by VESTAS employee Erik Sloth in 2004 show the company was aware of noise problems with their turbines ?

After the installation of Falmouth Wind I noise complaints from neighbors began immediately. Over a period of months the town came up with a elaborate long drawn out method to file certified written noise complaints.

At this point did the Town of Falmouth consider those that complained become second class citizens that should be glad to give up their health and property rights so that the town should make financial gains ?

Falmouth after the construction or the first wind turbine Falmouth Wind 1 the town decided to build a second wind turbine Falmouth Wind II. The plan was to use federal stimulus funds.

In order to receive ARRA , American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus funds for Falmouth Wind II .The Town had to file for a waiver to the United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 1—New England.

The waiver request is located in the Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 80 / Tuesday, April 27, 2010 / Notices
half way down column # 1 page 22130.

In that application that was approved by the US EPA the Town of Falmouth provided this information : “ The Town of Falmouth has adopted a local ordinance regulating large scale wind turbines. Zoning Article XXXIV, Chapter 240, Section 240–166 requires a Special Permit for windmills with minimum setback from property lines.”

Was the Town of Falmouth aware that the second Vestas turbine they intended to buy had a high decibel noise rating of 110 decibels of noise ?

Why didn’t the Town of Falmouth apply for wind turbine Special Permit 240-166 after the US EPA approved their permit to buy a foreign made wind turbine with federal stimulus money ?

On May 15, 2012 did the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection notify the Town of Falmouth the wind turbines were out of state noise compliance ?

On April 2, 2013 did staff members of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center send a memo to the MassCEC Board of Directors that admitted acoustic noise “mistakes “ in the installation of the first Falmouth wind turbine Falmouth Wind I ? Did the memo admit the exceedence of the 10 decibel limit ?

The MassCEC in 2013 paid Falmouth another 1.8 million to help pay litigation costs of the town against the victims of the wind turbines. Is this an effort to outspend the victims of the wind turbines who have been using their own savings to defend their health and property rights ?

In recent 2015 testimony before the Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals did the board hear from the authors of the original wind studies using a domestic made 1.5 General Electric wind turbine with a high output of 103.5 decibels ?

Did the authors of the original studies acknowledge the Vestas wind turbines owned by the town generate up to 110 decibels of noise ?

Did the authors fail to input that data , 110 decibels, in their study?

Falmouth, Massachusetts is ground zero for poorly placed wind turbines in the United States taking health and property rights with no compensation.

The commercial wind business in Massachusetts is a bunco scheme of enormous consequence. The people who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced by such mendacity, even from their government officials.

If Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey won’t do anything to protect health and property rights of the citizens of Massachusetts who will ?

Did Massachusetts Violate the Public Trust ?

Thanks concerned citizen Frank Haggerty