The negative impacts from the Scituate Wind turbine
Guest Column/Ellen Kasper | Scituate Mariner | Feb. 3, 2022 | www.wickedlocal.com
Guest Column/Ellen Kasper | Scituate Mariner | Feb. 3, 2022 | www.wickedlocal.com
Since 2012, alternative energy, environment supporting, neighbors of Scituate’s improperly sited Industrial Wind Turbine have reported negative health impacts, disturbances to their privacy, and assaults on their property from noise, shadow flicker, infrasound, vibration from its operation.
Neighbors have sent hundreds of notifications to the Board of Health, the Select Board, the police, and the Building Department reporting wind speeds, power activity, times, symptoms; literally begging for relief.
During COVID lockdown, we asked for respite from the often 24/7 IWT assault to try and maintain our health. Many of us were restricted to our homes, while others were required to work taking care of COVID patients. The response was simply “I understand.”
In addition to the stress induced by proximity to the IWT, we have suffered added stress from a town that refuses to protect our health and homes.
From inaccurate, one sided newspaper articles that remain uncorrected, to technical reports with unrelated false info included, rumors spread by town employees involved with Scituate Wind and IWT testing, to rude, inconsiderate treatment from town officials at board meetings, our most impacted neighbors and articulate, informed advocates have endured years of mistreatment.
As we watch town after town, state after state, and countries all around the world admit that these improperly sited Industrial Wind Turbines/Power Plants are harmful to people’s health (and NOT green), and take steps to shut them down, we continue to see Scituate refuse to:
1. Perform its duties to protect its citizens from harm (in spite of a former Select Board chairperson’s admission to the state, that Scituate’s IWT has directly caused negative health impacts since operations commenced),
2. Provide us with the specific contract language the town insists precludes them from requiring Scituate Wind LLC to comply with all applicable Laws and its Special Permit,
3. Provide us with detailed financial information showing the actual cost/benefit this unreliable energy source provides to the town;
4. Allow two respected professional acousticians to publicly present their Peer Reviews of the two Scituate Wind conducted/controlled studies. Previously supplied to BOH/BOS, these reviews show clear Noise Noncompliance based on the studies reported findings.
5. Admit that the Mass Department of Environmental Protection did not approve the testing protocols used and also did not do any testing.
We all support properly sited alternative energy sources. We understand that those following the “green” way did not understand the “green” actually meant “$ green”, a cash cow in subsidies for developers and other players…
We also understand that in their zeal for being green, they ignored what was already known in other parts of the world and trusted that the information provided by wind developers was accurate. We neighbors know it was not.
We also know that if this IWT was sited next to their homes, they would likely be fighting this same battle today. Please check out “Windwise,” look at what other countries report, check the real footage of what living next to Scituate IWT looks like and support efforts to stop this assault on your neighbors. This could easily happen to you.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2022/02/04/the-negative-impacts-from-the-scituate-wind-turbine/