December 22, 2017
Massachusetts

Cape Cod officials clearing way to pull down unpopular 400-foot-tall wind turbines

By Phil Demers | December 21, 2017 | www.masslive.com

Two deeply unpopular 400-foot-tall town-owned wind turbines on Cape Cod are coming down, or at least that’s what town officials are clearing the way to see happen.

The first turbine, Wind 1, turned off in 2015 due to lack of a special permit, is legally dormant by the letter of the town’s wind energy bylaw and should be pulled down says a nearby resident’s written request to the building inspector, which is being heeded by town officials. The bylaw says wind turbines dormant for 12 months are considered abandoned and can be removed.

According to The Cape Cod Times, Falmouth officials now have until May 31 to come up with a plan to bring down the structure.

Erected at the town’s wastewater treatment facility on Blacksmith Shop Road in 2010 and 2012, respectively, the turbines elicited immediate and continued backlash from neighbors, who said their property values were plummeting and claimed to be suffering health issues from living near the structures.

The second turbine was shut off in June, and will face a similar fate once a year of dormancy is up, according to The Times.

Ill health effects in humans caused by proximity to large-sized wind turbines have yet to be scientifically confirmed, but sufferers complain of anxiety, headaches, depression, poor sleep, annoyance and other symptoms, which they say are caused by vibrations and noise coming off the huge machines.

The state Department of Environmental Protection studied the issue of noise coming from the turbines in 2012, releasing a report which concluded nearby residents were experiencing elevated noise levels and recommending the project be shut down.

The Falmouth project, one of the first of its kind in the nation, opened many people’s eyes around the country to the scope and nature of wind turbine opposition among people who live very close by, and posed an interesting question to those involved in alternative energy public policy.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2017/12/22/cape-cod-officials-clearing-way-to-pull-down-unpopular-400-foot-tall-wind-turbines/