Falmouth Wind Turbines : Lawyers Milking Taxpayers

This past week a Barnstable Superior Court jury sided with the Town of Falmouth in a lawsuit over one of the town’s wind turbines. This case is one of nine expensive ongoing lawsuits against the town owned Vestas V-82 commercial 1.65 megawatt turbines.

The news media did not report on the specifics of the court trial. Much of the evidence against the town was not allowed into the jury trial. On appeal it probably will be.

Since the operation of the turbines commenced in 2010 the neighbors have never lost a case in court and this verdict could be appealed within 30 days.

Falmouth Wind I no longer operates and Falmouth Wind II only operates 12 hours a day six days of the week. A step in the right direction.

Neighbors in Falmouth and worldwide complain of noise and pressure generated by the turbines has caused headaches, nausea, and other physical ailments.

Prior to the installations of the turbines Vestas had warned the town the turbines generate 110 decibels of noise, a 2005 KEMA inc map showed the turbines would break state noise regulations and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center admitted it underestimated the acoustic noise studies done in 2005.The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has notified the town the turbines do break noise regulations.

In 2013 the Town of Falmouth held an election to take down the turbines. Prior to that election voters were never told the town was hiding the Vestas 110 Db noise warning letter from August of 2010, a KEMA Inc map that showed the decibel levels over state regulations on Black Smith Shop Road and a memo from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Board of Directors just prior to the election admitting the mistakes in the 2005 acoustic noise study was never made available to voters.

The Vestas 110 decibel letter was also hidden from the CBI-WTOP, Consensus Building Institute-Wind Turbine Option Analysis Process. The town failed to bargain in good faith.

Sooner or later in the one of the next eight trials all the information will go before a jury.

In 2014 the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center rewrote the Renewable Energy Contract to give the Town of Falmouth 1.8 million dollars in part to help pay legal fees.This is taxpayer money your money.

The Falmouth Town Meeting Members are voting up to $300,000.00 every six months for wind turbine litigation.More of your money

The only ones making money are the lawyers. The entire project is a health and financial fiasco.

Out of the nine current litigation cases most of the cases have not gotten trial dates. The trials appear to be going to last the life of the wind turbines.

The Falmouth wind turbines are older gear driven wind turbines that were supposed to last 20 years but have major maintenance problems between 5 and 7 years and then again in another 5 to 7 years.

The town told the media the energy produced by Wind 2 is used to run the wastewater treatment facility, and any extra power goes back to the grid. The town failed to state the amount of parasitic electricity it purchased from Eversource or the local grid operator to run Falmouth Wind I and Falmouth Wind II while it is shut off.

Wind turbines can use up to 20 percent of their output in electric power while they are shut down to run AC, batteries, computers, warning lights, heaters and any power needs of any power plant.

The neighbors are losing their health and property right and the taxpayers are pouring cash down the drain. Stop the madness and take down the turbines.

The warning letter, memo, maps, emails and documents sooner or later will come to light in one trial or another.

The bottom line is the taxpayer are being left in the dark paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for turbines that only have a limited life span either by the courts or maintenance costs.

The turbines are another Falmouth High School and think today what kind of Senior Center you could have had if not for the wind turbines and the legal fees.

The only ones making money today are the lawyers. This is no longer about renewable energy.