Falmouth Wind Turbines Boom-To-Bust 20 Years

The Energy Committee started studying wind power in 2002. By 2005 the committee had a community feasibility study prepared by KEMA, Inc. & Ecology and Environment, Inc.

The study determined most electricity in town is used at the Wastewater Treatment Plant which the study targeted to place a single General Electric wind turbine. KEMA also warned of 100 residential homes around the plant and a Special Permit from the zoning board is needed. The state of Massachusetts financed the study.

General Electric a domestic wind turbine company refused to build one wind turbine due to residential setbacks and ice throw.

Falmouth officials became enticed with a foreign-made wind turbine that the state of Massachusetts could not sell even at auction. The turbine at 110 decibels of noise is twice as loud as the GE turbine.

The Town by 2008 elected to install wind turbines at the Waste Water Plant because they got 1 million in advance from the state in renewable energy credits to take the foreign-made turbine off their hands.

It is at this point all the renewable energy studies should have been changed to wind turbine studies which were not intended in 2002.

Officials swayed by a state wind turbine agenda ignored an array of solar panels that could have generated up to three times as much based on the open space at the plant. In fact, solar panels would still be operating today!

Next comes a wind turbine loan for the second wind turbine #2 brokered by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection using funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The loan agreement required Falmouth Wind II to remain energy efficient or the 5 million had to be paid back. The town still owes 3.5 million.

The location of the second turbine (Wind II) also the same model 110 decibel foreign wind turbines ignored the original KEMA wind feasibility study as there are no noise studies for both turbines resulting in 113 decibels of noise. The noise equates to a hard rock band playing 24/7.

The universal pitch to the Falmouth community has always been that the proposed wind project will be a financial windfall. Their plan was based on the fact that most citizens or voters are technically challenged.

The Falmouth Select Board in November of 2019 convinced the community at Town Meeting they are economically strapped and got another 2.5 million to move the turbines out of town. The board counts again and again on the enticement of millions of dollars a year as enough to swing the deals.

The Falmouth zoning board and Massachusetts courts in 2015 and 2017 shut down both nuisance wind turbines.

After 18 years politicians have actually increased the Town’s carbon footprint ignoring their own 2005 KEMA study. The Energy Committee no longer produces energy reports used by fossil fuels.

In Falmouth industrial wind is a bunco scheme of enormous consequence. The citizens who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced by such mendacity, even from their government officials.

Picture depicts how neighbors were affected by noise

Two turbines operating at the same time = 113 decibels of noise 24/7