July 8, 2013
Letters, Massachusetts

Turbine neighbors unmoved by new wind outreach plan

Cape Cod Times | July 08, 2013 | www.capecodonline.com

Now that Falmouth voters have overwhelmingly said they will not pay for Gov. Patrick’s turbine siting mistake, the Patrick administration is doing what government does best: rearrange the furniture and put a new spin on its troubled plan for 2,000 megawatts of wind power by 2020.

You reported June 28 that the “new” Community Wind Outreach Initiative will do great things, including “open … the possibility of a more comprehensive state or federally supported study of the health effects of wind turbines,” as state environmental affair Secretary Richard K. Sullivan Jr. said.

This should offer a smile to the Falmouth Board of Health, whose request to the state Department of Public Health to conduct such a study a year ago was rejected because it didn’t have the funds. (Oh, but Sullivan is not the DPH commissioner. He only controls the vast pools of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center money collected from every electricity ratepayer in the commonwealth each month.)

Falmouth residents will be overjoyed to understand that the state “will not leave Falmouth holding the bag” (as Sullivan assured Falmouth wind turbine neighbors last year). But they’re probably wondering what the initiative’s new spin is on the reality that Falmouth’s wind turbines are just too close to neighbors.

J. Malcolm Donald

Falmouth

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/07/08/turbine-neighbors-unmoved-by-new-wind-outreach-plan/