Op-Ed Relocation of Falmouth turbine could net town $5.7M

The news media displayed a clear bias, the taxpayers who are on the losing end of that bias are not going to be happy!

In June of 2017 after as many as eleven lawsuits multiple Massachusetts courts shut down the two town-owned wind turbines both lacking permits and producing 110 decibels of noise each. The neighbors describe the noise as torture.

The town owns two Vestas V-82 type 1.65 megawatt wind turbines which the wind turbine manufacturer did warn were too loud in emails and in specifications prior to construction in 2010 and 2012.

In October of 2018, the news media reported relocating one of two town-owned wind turbines to another spot on the wastewater treatment plant property so it can once again operate would produce a nice profit for the town over the next 20 years, according to an "associate" from the towns' engineering firm hired to look at alternative locations for Wind II. The same engineering company that placed the turbines in the first place? The associate is not an acoustic engineer!

The Town of Falmouth since the news story has received a report from an acoustic engineer that the distance to meet 40 decibels for Wind II, a Vestas V82 with a sound power level of 110 decibels, is approximately 891 meters or 2923 feet. There is nowhere at the Falmouth Wastewater Treatment Plant to place a single wind turbine and there never was. The media omitted the report from the acoustic engineer they don't want you to have that information.

Developments in the last few years have placed journalism under fire because of reporting by omission and only reporting their agenda not just in editorials but in actual news stories which are now called "fake news."

The story goes on to report it would take about $3 million to dismantle the turbines but produce a net profit of $5.7 million over 20 years. These type turbines were designed in the 1990s having massive gearbox failures and are no longer produced because of the failures. The story lacks journalistic integrity as it states the turbines may last 20 more years but leaves out the consequence it will cost more to replace gearboxes than buy a brand new state of the art direct-drive turbine.

The new media gives themselves an out in the one-sided story saying the estimate "assumes" the wind turbine would operate without any major disruption. They know all about gearbox failures they reported on the replacement of the privately-owned Vestas wind turbine in Falmouth. This story was buried deep inside a Saturday edition of the paper omits the costs of the replacement and crane service.

The town engineering report said the turbine could likely run 25 to 30 years. The engineering report did not site any commercial gear-driven wind turbines that lasted 25 to 30 years. The Neg Micon wind turbine company that first produced the first Falmouth wind turbine went bankrupt over gearbox failures. Vestas purchased the company in 2004 reproducing the Neg Micon NM 82 as the Vestas V 82 another omission.

The news media has never reported that General Electric a domestic wind turbine company refused to place a smaller wind turbine due to safety and health. Due to a study done by KEMA Inc in 2005 for the Town of Falmouth noise levels showed up to 99 residential homes could be affected by one GE turbine.

The news media also failed journalistic integrity knowing the town has produced evidence to the courts that each turbine generates 110 decibels of noise which includes emails, letters, memos and the 2005 KEMA Inc study.

The media leaves out the fact that the federal government requirements for Falmouth Wind II require according to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 loan agreement owes 3.5 million plus 2 percent interest.

Journalism scandals are high-profile incidents or an act. These standards were significantly breached in Falmouth.

One only has to ask why in Massachusetts over the past ten years with twenty-one communities and thousands of noise complaints the Massachusetts Department of Health and/or Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has never interviewed a single wind turbine victim.

The commercial wind turbines are a bunco scheme of enormous consequence. The people who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced by such mendacity, even from their government and news media.

The news media has an agenda and its not your health and property rights.