Letter: Massachusetts Supreme Court -Wind Turbines

Letter to the Massachusetts Supreme Court:

Falmouth Select Board Throws Dice Again - There are penalties for losing

April 1, 2015

The Falmouth Select board voted to appeal the recent Massachusetts Superior Court decision against the construction of the wind turbines and by-law 240-166.

The Town of Falmouth has taken a why not appeal the case we have nothing to lose attitude. That is not the case. The Massachusetts Superior Court can be very punitive when it comes to filing a frivolous Further Application for Review , FAR or what is called the appeal.

The appellate court may, upon motion of any party or upon its own motion, award double costs, damages and interest to the appellee .

Legal fees of the wind turbine victims could very well be considered by the Appeals Court to be an element of damages for the frivolous appeal .

The Town of Falmouth continues and has a history to file appeals,lawsuits and obfuscation to keep the wind turbines spinning. The appellate courts are more and more willing to impose sanctions when an appeal in a civil case is frivolous, immaterial or intended for delay.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court could very well tell the Town of Falmouth to pick up the litigation fees for the wind turbine victims. The wind victims should ask the courts to have the Town of Falmouth pay their litigation costs.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is paying the litigation cost of the town and not the wind turbine victims.

The MassCEC by paying the town legal fees is trying to put the wind turbine victims in the poor house to make them give up and move away.

The wind turbine victims are being victimized again by the very same people who installed the turbines ! The victims are paying litigation fees to protect their health and property rights.

The Massachusetts Superior Court should require the Town of Falmouth to pay the wind turbine victims legal fees for filing a frivolous request for Further Appellate Review .

Here is what we know :

According to an August 3, 2010 letter Vestas wind company warned the town prior to construction that their turbines would break state noise laws and regulations.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in a memo admitted: “Even though the original MTC-commissioned feasibility study for Falmouth over-estimated the likely acoustic impact, that study did not include a detailed acoustic analysis based upon sampling of ambient acoustic conditions (as is our current, more rigorous practice) which might have identified a potential exceedance of the 10 decibel limit,” the memo reads.

“The Falmouth wind turbines are of an older design which does not offer ‘low noise operations’ or other retrofit options.”

Nils Bolgen the program director and facilitator of Falmouth Wind I & II from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has changed the setbacks of the commercial wind turbines to 2000 feet in May of 2013. Bolgen also admitted the Falmouth turbines were sited “Ad Hoc.”

“ Nills Bolgen , who works with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, said his organization has become “more conservative” in requiring project proposals seeking funding to provide more detailed data if they are close to residential areas.”

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative now the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center was the former owner of Falmouth Wind I. The state agency dropped the reference to two distinct types of noise from the Falmouth feasibility study prior to the installation of Wind I. The agency was unsuccessful in several prior attempts to site the turbines because of the reference to the two types of noise. The references to the two types of noise were “State Regulatory Noise” and the other “Human Annoyance” or what we know today as infra- sound or low frequency noise.

It is clear that Vestas wind company the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative aka the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, wind contractors and the Town of Falmouth were aware the turbine had noise problems prior to the installation.

Falmouth by-law 240-166 ( wind turbine by-law) would have required additional hearings and setback reviews. The town ignored the by-law for obvious reasons.

The appellate court should be willing to impose sanctions against the Town of Falmouth. The appellate court may, upon motion of any party or upon its own motion, award double costs, damages and interest to the appellee .

One sanction would require the Town of Falmouth and/or the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to pay the litigation costs of the wind turbine victims