FALMOUTH WIND TURBINES A NOISE DESCRIBED AS TORTURE

We have witnessed the unfolding events in Falmouth over the past several years with a growing sense of shock and disbelief​ as the town government has hardened its position against those who have suffered most profoundly from the bumbling incompetence and gross negligence of the Energy Committee, Board of Selectman, ZBA and Board of Health, all of whom have at one time or another abdicated their responsibility under the law and their duty to the citizens in Falmouth.


To my knowledge, no one on the Board of Selectmen or any of these other boards has seriously challenged the idea -- the established fact, from testimony of dozens of victims -- that the wind turbines are harming some residents, producing adverse health impacts, disrupting their sleep, negatively impacting their quality of life and impairing their reasonable right to the use and enjoyment of their property, which ultimately manifests itself in reduced property valuations and loss of equity.

The indisputable facts are these:

1. The wind turbines have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to residents

2. There is no law in the Commonwealth that entitles the Town of Falmouth, or any other developer for that matter, to impose such harm on residents (or, to use the legal definition, to impose such a “nuisance”).

3. Yet the Town of Falmouth has pursued, and continues to pursue, a plethora of legal actions against the victims the goal of which is to allow the Town to continue causing harm to residents.

Does anyone on the Board of Selectmen DENY that the wind turbines are causing harm?

No, they do not.

Instead, they speak of a “balancing of interests” or the “balance of their responsibility” to taxpayers in Falmouth who must pay the cost of rectifying this costly mistake. By “balancing” these interests in favor of the Town’s economic gain, the members of the BoS are taking the implicit position that they have some sort of unstated right to harm some residents if it is just too expensive to stop harming them!

The BoS knows that they cannot DENY that they are harming residents -- since the evidence they are doing so is so abundant -- so instead they have invested all of their energy in various legal machinations, the goal of which is to AVOID taking responsibility for the harm while ASSERTING their presumed RIGHT TO HARM their own residents.

We continue to believe that residents should confront members of the BoS, the ZBA, the BoH -- all of these boards -- at every turn and ask them these two questions:

1) Do you honestly believe that all of the people who have complained about their symptoms are LYING?

How is it possible that some four dozen people have all conspired to make these things up? How is it possible to believe that they are all such accomplished actors that when the come to you to complain about a known pattern of symptoms, they are all acting out a script, but not truly sincere?

Yes or no: ARE THEY ALL LYING or do you believe that they are telling the truth?

2) If you say they are lying, what basis do you have for making such an assertion? How can one possibly reach this conclusion? How do you justify such an opinion? (They can’t; and they won’t.)

3) If you say that you DO believe that they are suffering -- that they are being unjustly harmed -- WHAT LAW CAN YOU CITE THAT ENTITLES THE TOWN OF FALMOUTH TO HARM THEM?

Is there any law in the Commonwealth that allows the Town to harm residents in this way?

No, there is not.

For the sake of God , then, stop all of the nonsense -- and stop suing them! Admit that you have no right to harm them; and stop harming them, whatever the cost!

Otherwise, they are putting a price on this “right to harm.”

They are saying, we don’t think we should be able to harm our residents unless the profit from harming them is very attractive; or if the cost to stop harming them is very high; or if the pressure, and the bribes, from Mass Clean Energy to continue harming them are very intense.

Where is the law that applies a sliding scale to the ability to impose such harm? Where is the law that says that a Town may only impose severe hardship if, and only if, the reward for doing so -- or the embarrassment of not doing so -- is very, very high?

This is the most blatantly illegal and immoral predatory action on the part of a Town versus its citizens that anyone has witnessed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts over the past decade.

We can’t understand how these people -- the members of the BoS -- are able to go out in public without being continually shamed for their actions.

Conversely, We have limitless admiration for the residents who have been so resolute, and so resilient, in standing their ground against this onslaught, refusing to bow to this injustice. I do believe that you will ultimately prevail. I dearly hope that this fight will be resolved in your favor sooner, rather than later.