Falmouth 110 Db Wind Turbine Settlement Questioned

Insurance companies owe a duty of good faith to policyholders like taxpayers who purchased a policy. Unfortunately, they don't always fulfill that duty.

When you file an insurance damage claim and it turns into a bad faith insurance claim or settlement, you can actually be compensated a larger amount. Simply put the less money insurance companies pay their policyholders on claims, the more money the company keeps for itself. In attempting to reduce the overall amount of money paid to claimants, insurance companies sometimes act in bad faith especially when it comes to health and safety.

The Town of Falmouth has been withholding a Vestas wind turbine warning from August of 2010 prior to the construction of Falmouth Wind II. The letter addressed to the town warned the turbine generates a chest pounding 110 decibels of noise. The letter further states that the town had been warned prior to the construction of any turbines of the noise levels.

To date, the town has never released the 110-decibel letter to the general public.

In 2012 the Town of Falmouth Select Board and state agreed to the Falmouth Wind Turbine Option Analysis Process (WTOP) to engage in an open, transparent, and collaborative exploration of the range of options for the long-term future of the town's two wind turbines – Wind I and Wind II. The process was 26 meetings over one year at cost of $140,000.00 in which the town withheld the Vestas 110 decibel noise warning. The town hid the warning and wasted $140,000.00.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Board of Directors on April 2, 2013 staff memorandum admits studies done prior to the construction of the Falmouth wind turbines underestimated the acoustic impact and failed to provide a detailed acoustic analysis.

To make matters worse the Falmouth Select Board has been requesting more and more money from Town Meeting Members every six months to fight the neighbors around the wind turbines. Reaching spending approvals of up to $260,000.00 to pay for litigation while the 110-decibel warning letter and memo remained hidden from Town Meeting.

On June 17, 2017 the Massachusetts court system agreed with the Falmouth Zoning Board the wind turbines are a nuisance and shut them down.

The town entered into negotiations with its statewide insurance company brokered by a Boston law firm to resolve multiple litigation and complaints.In June of 2018, the Town of Falmouth settled multiple nuisance complaints about the wind turbines at the Falmouth Waste Water Treatment Facility.

The story does not end here. Just prior to the pending settlement two months earlier in April of 2018 the town hired an engineering consulting firm to move Falmouth wind turbine number two, (Falmouth Wind II).

On October 15, 2018, the Falmouth Select Board and engineering firm introduced at a public meeting the $14,000.00 report to move Falmouth Wind II and a fifty-one, 51, page written report by the engineering company using old data to move the wind turbine.

The one outstanding item left out of the fifty-one-page report is any mention of Falmouth Wind II generating 110 decibels of chest pounding noise? The acoustic part of the fifty-one-page report leaves out the health and safety setbacks for a 110-decibel wind turbine.A single 110 decibel wind turbine equals a hard rock band playing 24/7.

The Falmouth wind turbine information over the years has a long history of information omitted from reports which include, memos, emails, maps, letters that the public has never seen.

The question is why does the town continue to cover up the August 2010 Vestas 110 decibel noise warning?

The only possible conclusion is the Town of Falmouth after General Electric a domestic wind turbine company refused to place a single megawatt wind turbine because of residential setbacks and ice throw went forward breaking multiple laws and regulations.

The Town of Falmouth went forward with a loan/grant to buy Falmouth Wind II using federal stimulus funds known as the ARRA, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The use of these funds does not allow a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety related to the implementation or use of covered funds.

The Town of Falmouth hiding the August 2010 Vestas of America 110 decibel noise warning makes it a potentially incriminating document to misuse money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

(#Note : The Town of Falmouth after October 15, 2018, is in receipt of a letter from an acoustic expert that Falmouth Wind II needs a setback of 2923 feet from residential homes.)

The bottom line after eight years safety and health are again being ignored with no detailed acoustic analysis of Falmouth Wind II a chest pounding 110-decibel wind turbine and ARRA, American Recovery, and Reinvestment Act funds should never have been allowed to cause what the neighbors describe as wind turbine noise torture.

The town now plans to reuse the same American Recovery, and Reinvestment Act funds to move Falmouth Wind II.