March 15, 2019
Massachusetts

Suso provides Falmouth wind turbine update

By Brad Cole | www.capenews.net

Falmouth town administration plans to issue a request for proposals related to the town’s two wind turbines at the wastewater treatment plant site in April.

The requested proposals are to either lease property outside Falmouth to run the wind turbines, sell the turbines, or repurpose a wind turbine tower as a cellphone and repeater tower.

“If all goes as planned, we should have a final product to advertise and issue in the upcoming month of April,” Town Manager Julian M. Suso told selectmen at their meeting on Monday, March 11.

“I, Frank Duffy, Jennifer Petit and Peter Johnson-Staub are working with consultant Weston & Sampson in assembling elements necessary for the multiple procurement options outlined by the board,” he said.

In addition to initiating the request for proposals process at its January meeting, Falmouth selectmen voted not to allow these two turbines to operate within the town again.

The two wind turbines have remained controversial since their installation in 2009 and 2010. Wind 1 was shut down in September 2015 after the Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals issued a cease-and-desist order. Wind 2 was shut down in June 2017, after Barnstable County Superior Court Judge Cornelius J. Moriarty II upheld the zoning board of appeals’ decision deeming the turbines a nuisance.

In December 2017, building commissioner Rodman L. Palmer ordered the removal of Wind 1 as a non-complying structure under the town’s Wind Energy System Bylaw. Under this bylaw, a wind facility that fails to operate for 12 consecutive months is considered abandoned.

A similar complaint was made regarding Wind 2 last June, but Mr. Palmer determined the structure had not been abandoned by the town, because the town continued to perform periodic maintenance to preserve it for relocation.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/03/15/suso-provides-falmouth-wind-turbine-update/