Wind turbine could make awful neighbor
www.eastbayri.com 11 November 2011
As an engineer, also as an abutter of the proposed wind turbine site behind the Westport fire station, I look at the facts.
Articles have described wind turbine neighbors’ experiences in other towns – I describe these as “lessons learned.”
We know of these problems in other towns and we can learn much from their mistakes. Furthermore this wind turbine proposed to be built behind the fire station, but not on fire station property, is actually on cemetery property. This will reduce the cemetery life by 12 years.
I would like to add that prior to the voting at town meeting, not one abutter was ever notified by the Alternate Energy Committee about the project. It was a surprise when I attended the meeting. Town meeting is attended by a very small fraction of the regestered voters. I think you can guess or know the rest of the story.
I contacted Tony and Donna Olszewski from Portsmouth, RI, (whose experiences had been described in one article, and invited them to attend the September 12 Energy Committee meeting in Westport. Donna and Tony gave a very emotional speech about their suffering from the light flicker, noise and low frequency generator hum due to this wind turbine.
Tony directed me to this YouTube website where he had a video of light flickering at his house: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj6BotyeDjc
I forwarded this web site to the Energy Committee, Board of Selectmen and also several others in our community. The common response from people in our neighborhood after viewing this video was “Oh My God”
In quoting a neighbor, “NIMBY is used so often to oppose projects, but no one in Westport should have to live with an industrial wind turbine in their back or front yard.”
Thank you for listening,
Daniel Michaels
Westport
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/11/12/wind-turbine-could-make-awful-neighbor/