Ongoing Legal Efforts to Keep Falmouth's Turbines Spinning

It was a dramatic scene at the John Adams courthouse in Boston on October 2nd, 2018, as a three-judge appeals court panel heard attorneys present their arguments regarding the shutdown of Falmouth’s two wind turbines. Falmouth's town government was conspicuously absent at the hearing. No attorney, no selectman, nobody at all representing Falmouth town hall was present to testify or even to observe the proceedings. Fortunately, two founding members of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Dr. George Woodwell and attorney Richard Ayres, were there to defend Falmouth taxpayers against the $12 Million burden of scrapping the turbines.

The case dates back to 2014, when Falmouth’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) ruled the Wind1 turbine was a nuisance, in response to a complaint from Barry and Diane Funfar. Falmouth selectmen appealed the ZBA ruling. In June 2017, Barnstable Superior Court Judge Moriarty upheld the ZBA decision and ordered both wind turbines turned off. The ruling was a stark contrast to a decision just two months earlier in a similar case at the same court, when a jury found Wind1 was not a nuisance to the Andersen family.

Falmouth Selectmen decided in summer 2017 to not appeal the shutdown order. That decision, which leads to a $12 Million burden for local taxpayers, contradicts the 2013 mandate from Falmouth’s voters, when all nine precincts voted against funding turbine removal. A group of Falmouth residents, led by Dr. George Woodwell,
sought to appeal on the Town’s behalf, in a case filed by The Green Center, a local non-profit.

Judge Rubin, one of three judges hearing the appellate case, read aloud the first paragraph of a 2007 Massachusetts law authorizing Falmouth to finance, install and operate wind turbines at the Blacksmith Shop Road location. Attorneys for The Green Center contend this law bypasses the special permit requirements of Falmouth bylaws.

A decision from the court may take several weeks, or months. In the meantime, with each passing day, Falmouth has less municipal income, and more carbon emissions, than it would have if the
turbines were spinning.

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