EPA Feds Ignore ARRA Wind Turbine State Loan Misuse

Andrew R. Wheeler is the Administrator of the United States federal government's Environmental Protection Agency.

EPA is an agency of the United States federal government whose mission is to protect human and environmental health.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds were used to buy American and put Americans to work.

By April 27, 2010, the Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts received a federal EPA waiver to buy a foreign-made wind turbine:

"Notice of a Regional Project Waiver of Section 1605 (Buy American) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to the Town of Falmouth, MA

A Notice by the Environmental Protection Agency on 04/27/2010"

The federal EPA waiver should never have been allowed. The town omitted all negative documents from the EPA waiver application.

General Electric a domestic wind turbine company refused to place one commercial wind turbine due to residential setbacks and ice throw to a nearby highway. The waiver says a domestic wind turbine is not available but left out the reason GE refused over safety, health and residential property setbacks.

The EPA waiver was for a second town-owned foreign-made wind turbine. Each foreign turbine generates 110 decibels of noise. There was no study for how loud two foreign wind turbines operating at the same time generates.

The EPA was never told in the waiver the Town of Falmouth had been warned in writing prior to construction by the foreign-made wind turbine company the turbines generate 110 decibels of noise each.

The EPA waiver states the town had a bylaw 240-166 to install the wind turbine but never filed the permits Filing the permits would have required additional notifications to neighbors through the Zoning Board of Appeals in which case the turbines would never have been built.

The Town of Falmouth had a study done in 2005 by KEMA Inc prior to construction that showed the installation of these 110-decibel foreign-made turbines would destroy the lives of up to 200 residential homeowners.

In June of 2017 after as many as eleven lawsuits the Massachusetts courts shut down both nuisance wind turbines. They remain shut down today.

Five million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds were used as a loan to build Falmouth Wind II the second of two commercial wind turbines.

The federal EPA waiver opened the door to the misuse of ARRA stimulus funds building the second Falmouth wind turbine.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection brokered a loan between the Town of Falmouth and the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust using ARRA funds deposited in the Massachusetts State Revolving Fund. The Massachusetts Clean Water Trust and MassDEP provided the PRA, project regulatory agreement.

The project regulatory agreement states the 5 million has to be paid back plus 2 percent interest if the turbine stops producing energy. The turbines shut down in 2017. The loan not paid back.

The 5 million loan should have to go back to the Mass State Revolving Fund as it is designed as a revolving fund to reuse cash for other Green Energy projects.

Outside legal counsel has advised the Town of Falmouth that Wind II is subject to specific provisions of ARRA and applicable federal regulations and guidelines ("Federal Law') in addition to the terms and conditions of the Project Regulatory Agreement ("PRA") and the Loan Agreement associated with the funding of Wind II.

Under Federal Law and the PRA and Loan Agreement, the Town must maintain Wind II as an "energy efficiency" project, as described in EPA guidelines dated March 2, 2009, in order to benefit from the financial subsidy provided by the Trust under ARRA and the Trust's Clean Water State Revolving Fund program.

Federal regulations governing the Trust's ARRA grant at 40 CRF Part 31.30(d) (1),

Balance Due 3.5 million plus interest