Wind turbines don’t make good neighbors
Letter: Wind turbines don't make good neighbors | The Berkshire Eagle | September 22, 2017 | www.berkshireeagle.com
Letter: Wind turbines don't make good neighbors | The Berkshire Eagle | September 22, 2017 | www.berkshireeagle.com
Two wind turbines were put up in the town where I live in close financial collaboration with the state. The neighbors only found out when the land was cleared on Veterans Day 2011. At that time the project was so far advanced that there was little the neighbors could do to stop it, although we tried very hard.
After the giant blades (total turbine height is 394 feet) began to spin, the turbine neighbors turned to the state Department of Environmental Protection for relief from the intrusive turbine sounds. Testing showed that the turbines exceeded the noise limits set by the state. Residents submitted over 850 complaint forms to the local Board of Health but nothing was done to help those who were suffering. Instead, the company and the state came up with a plan that only turns off the turbines occasionally between midnight and 4 a.m. in light winds and never in the rain. Not helpful.
To date, those who actually live next to the turbines have been excluded from every decision involving the turbines and the impacts of the turbines on their lives. Based on the experiences of turbine neighbors in Fairhaven, Falmouth, Scituate, Kingston, Plymouth, and the Hoosac project in the Berkshires, the state and your local government will not help you after the turbines are turned on.
Industrial wind turbines are power plants that run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The sound they emit is intrusive and harmful. And the turbines in my town are smaller than the five turbines proposed for Savoy.
To understand more about the consequences of wind turbines in the communities of Fairhaven and Scituate, I suggest that citizens of Savoy go to wind-watch.org, a website that collects news stories and documents about industrial wind turbines from news sources around the state, the nation and the world. And then do everything they can to prevent these turbines from ever being erected.
Louise Barteau,
Fairhaven
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2017/09/23/wind-turbines-dont-make-good-neighbors/