Dark 5M Cloud Over Falmouth Wind Turbines

MassDEP & Massachusetts Clean Water Trust : Loan CWSG-09-36 was originally approved in the principal amount of $4,865,000 at an interest rate of 2% on January 10, 2010.

The two town-owned Falmouth wind turbines have been out the headlines for a couple of months now but there still on the minds of state officials and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. Federal, state, and local audit officials must be inquiring into the project regulatory agreement for the land-based wind turbines since November 2019.

The Town of Falmouth held a town meeting in November of 2019 and approved 2.5 million to take down it's two non-compliant megawatt wind turbines deemed a nuisance by multiple courts in June of 2017. The turbines numbered I and II were installed in 2010 and 2012 without permits.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, MassDEP has indicated that the Wind II project funding, which was administered by the DEP under the State Revolving Funds (SRF) program with 100% forgiveness of both principal and interest (i.e. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ARRA Loan), would revert according to federal regulations to the standard 2% loan, if the wind turbine was not used for generating electricity as the Town intended and represented in the application for funding.

MassDEP brokered the ARRA loan on Falmouth Wind II after neighbors complained that the installation of the first turbine Falmouth Wind I was criminal. The town had received noise warnings in emails and a written letter from the wind turbine manufacturer prior to construction that the turbines each generate 110 decibels of noise. The town also ignored the fact at 110 decibels the wind turbines produce infrasound or what is called low frequency that can not be heard but can be felt.

Commercial industrial wind turbine development is being strongly supported by private interests due largely to government subsidies and artificial financial incentives such as the project regulatory agreement brokered by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The MassDEP ignored its own noise regulations to protect the public to broker a wind turbine loan in Falmouth?

To escape infrasound you have to hide in the basement or leave the property.

Reliable acousticians in a documented report state: "The distance to meet 40 dBA for Wind II, a Vestas V82 with sound power level of 110 dBA, is approximately 891 meters or 2923 feet."

In 2013 the town voted in favor of the turbines and in a town vote voted two to one in favor of keeping the turbines., The vote in favor of the turbines involved the omission of wind turbine documents to the public that even today remain seen by the courts but not the public.

The town even in 2020 has not released the 110 decibels August 2010 noise warning letter prior to construction to the public.

MassDEP has not issued a completion certificate for this loan and will not until the town is able to certify that the turbine will be used for the intended purposes and remains energy efficient.

According to the MassDEP PRA, Project Regulatory Agreement, in the event that the project ceases to function as an energy efficient project (June 2017), the Trust will amend Schedule C to reinstate the Town's obligation to pay principal and interest on the Loan and take such other actions as it deems necessary or appropriate to ensure compliance with Federal Law, the PRA, and the Loan Agreement.

ARRA Loan: Video Falmouth Special Town Meeting June 2009
The video starts at the 14-minute mark after the advertising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8LFk6JbxhU