September 21, 2010
Massachusetts

Scanlan Company will seek permission to install wind turbine in tech park

By Brent Runyon, The Enterprise, 17 September 2010

Despite complaints about the town’s wind turbine in West Falmouth, J. K. Scanlan Company Inc. will apply in the coming months to the Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals to build a new 150-foot wind turbine at Falmouth Technology Park, said Greg W. Inman, project manager for the company.

“We here at J. K. Scanlan feel strongly about green energy, but we don’t just want to preach it; we want to live it,” Mr. Inman said.

He is not worried about complaints from neighbors, he said, because the proposed turbine will be in the shadow of the much larger turbines at the town wastewater treatment plant, and Teledyne Webb Research. Each of those machines is about 450 feet high.

“The size of the turbine we’re proposing doesn’t even compare to the other ones,” Mr. Inman said, explaining that the turbine would be similar in scope to the one at the Woods Hole Research Center on Woods Hold Road and produce between 100 kilowatt hours and 250 kilowatt hours of energy.

J. K. Scanlan Inc. got into the turbine construction business three years ago and is in the process of completing three wind turbines, two in Gardner and another in Minnesota. The company had also secured the contract for a wind turbine at Cape Cod Community College, which was deemed inappropriate by the Old Kings Highway Historic District Commission, and is currently in litigation.

Assistant Town Manager Heather B. Harper said the town will release the sound study of the turbine at the Waste Management Facility on Blacksmith Shop Road in the coming weeks, and will meet with neighbors who said the town-owned turbine negatively affected their quality of life.

Town planners have also committed to reviewing the town’s outdated bylaws regarding wind turbines, but will likely see the J. K. Scanlan Inc. application before any revisions are complete.

Mr. Inman said he expects to submit the application before the end of the year, and the revisions could not be submitted before Spring Town Meeting.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/09/21/scanlan-company-will-seek-permission-to-install-wind-turbine-in-tech-park/