August 3, 2011
Massachusetts

Wind farm on Mount Massaemet?

By DIANE BRONCACCIO, Recorder staff, www.recorder.com 3 August 2011

SHELBURNE – A Shelburne Center landowner is to meet with the town Zoning Board of Appeals Thursday night to discuss the permit process for a possible wind farm on Mount Massaemet.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall.

According to the ZBA meeting agenda, the board is to “review windmill proposals with F. Donald Field.”

ZBA Chairman Joseph Palmeri said this is a preliminary meeting, in which the board will be hearing Field’s proposal for the first time and will be going over the permit process with him.

“He’s basically sitting down with the board on an informal basis to find out the procedure he needs to go through,” said Palmeri.

Palmeri confirmed, however, that Field now lives in Littleton and spoke of wanting to put up “multiple” wind turbines near Mount Massaemet.

Frederick Donald Field, who grew up on Shelburne, owns roughly 81 acres of land off Route 2 in he vicinity of Mount Massaemet, according to the town Assessors Office.

Frederick D. Field of Littleton is listed as director of a 2-year-old corporation called Mount Massaemet Windfarm Inc., according to the Secretary of State’s Office. The corporation is based in Littleton, and Field is listed as its “registered agent.”

The home page of a Mount Massaemet Windfarm Inc. website says tat the company is a “privately owned clean energy company whose sole business venture is to own and operate a wind power facility on the ridge line of Mt. Massaemet in Shelburne.”

It says that eight 2.5-megawatt wind turbines are to be placed on he east side of the stone fire tower along the Mount Massaemet ridge. Access would be from Shelburne Center, near Davenport’s Maple Farm. It says that a transmission line, owned by Northeast Utilities, now crosses the property. A new substation is proposed on the Field property, to connect the turbine generation facility to the grid.

The website is: www.mtmassaemetwindfarminc.com.

When reached by phone late Tuesday afternoon, Field confirmed the details given on his website. But he said part of the reason he was going to the Zoning Board was to learn what would be allowable at that site.

Shelburne doesn’t have a wind turbine siting bylaw.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/08/03/wind-farm-on-mount-massaemet/