Wind Turbine Meeting WTOP December 18
| WTOP Meeting, Falmouth Public Library Hermann Room, 6:00 - 9:00 pm |
Dec 18 http://www.cbuilding.org/falmouthwind The purpose of the Falmouth Wind Turbine Option Analysis Process (WTOP) is to engage in an open, transparent, and collaborative exploration of the range of options for the long-term future of the Town’s two Wind Turbines – Wind I and Wind II. Hosted by Consensus Building Institute
Bill Carson
7:21 pm on Thursday, December 27, 2012
Has the WTOP failed ? After eight months of meetings many of which local residents were kept waiting hours to express their issues about health and property values. One meeting residents had to wait three hours to be allowed to speak.
The Falmouth mediation has gone on longer than the peace talks at Panmunjom that ended the Korean war in 1953.
The broken promise not to run Wind II during the holidays sent a clear message when the Wind II turbine began operating the day before Christmas.
The mediators have called for yet another meeting Jan 8&9 ,2012 . The mediators have closed up shop and gone on an extended vacation and won't be back until Jan 2,2013.
It appears the finances of the town come before the interest of the residents healt and property values ....
Falmouth Neighbor
9:53 am on Monday, January 7, 2013
Mr. Carson-Your comments about the WTOP process are very misguided. The members have been meeting weekly for 2-1/2 hours to discuss a variety of materials. In my opinion when a group of 15 people meet (and attendance has been 100% by each stakeholder group) and are able to move forward in a difficult process is a success. Why are you so intent to call it a failure? Just because it hasn't finished yet? Do you want the process to be unfinished? The members of the group are driving the timeline not the mediator. And if you attended the meetings or at least reviewed the information as I have, you would know that the meetings on the 8th and 9th are about finalizing the report for the BoS and not a continuation of discussion. Please do not take what has been a positive process for residents and turn it into some kind of political takeover (referring to it like the Peace talks for the Korean War is inappropriate hyperbole).
As for your other remarks: public comment has always been at the end of the meeting. I have seen the meetings and know that when time runs down, the mediator asks if the meeting can continue or if comments should be taken. To the best of my knowledge no one has stood up and chosen to speak at the "agenda time". The fact that Wind II was operating on Christmas Eve was not a broken promise. The agreement was for Thanksgiving and Christmas days. The turbines were off on both days as agreed. The issue was Wind II running after 7PM which was a program glitch fixed
Bill Carson
1:02 pm on Monday, January 7, 2013
The mediation has gone on for eight months ! This to me is more about how to deal with the political embarrassment of buying a five year old 1.65 megawatt turbine from a semi quasi state agency in which many politicians are embarrassed over the whole mess! It's long been known the noise issues in other countries and the state semi quasi state agency only provides positive information in its reports and discards negative information .
The Falmouth Wind 1 turbine a 2005 Vestas V82 commercial 1.65 megawatt turbine is the largest embarrassment to Massachusetts other that the Big Dig .
This turbine should never have been placed in the first place .
The Town of Falmouth is placing the health of its residents above the short term financial gains of commercial turbine that will soon need up to a million dollars in repairs !
The turbines should have been shut down period !!!!!!!
mark cool
10:14 am on Saturday, January 5, 2013
I was warned recently that I aught to be careful about this Falmouth Wind Turbine Mess ~ Why I should be warn of using care when none has been exercised by agenda driven politicians and wind industry greed.. in terms of safe WT siting ... is beyond me? A peer-reviewed 2012 public health study; Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health, by Dr. M. Nissenbaum, et.al., recommends a residential setback distance from the nearest wind turbine based on 20 times the blade rotation diameter. Rather than potentially bias 'investigators' (I use Investigators very loosely), the best judges for assessing noise and sound pressure intrusion are, in deed, the neighbors. Yet, a recent study in Wisconsin performed by 'investigators' indicate Low frequency noise from WTs may cause health problems. Link to report - http://psc.wi.gov/apps35/ERF_view/viewdoc.aspx?docid=178263
mark cool
10:16 am on Saturday, January 5, 2013
A couple of things you should know about this study! It was conducted by five different researchers from all points of the country. Hessler and Assoc. who said that althought the low frequency noise was high there is no proof that this is bad . This is the company the Clean Wisconsin wanted to do the study by themselves. This is because they are the exclusive researcher used by the WInd Industry. The addition of the 4 other company's forced them to report the problems whether they liked it or not, although they try to discount it. THE MOST REVEALING PART of this study is the fact that Clean Wisconsin delivered the study to the PSC where it was revealed that Clean Wisconsin had removed critical parts of a signed study paid for by the PSC which showed the necessary setbacks needed to meet safe levels. You be the judge of why!!! This is devastating for the wind industry and they know it. The Danish wind regulatory code (from the country with the most per capital wind installlation in the world) has standards for low frequency noise. The Shirley wind farm isn't close to being in compliance. Which then begs the question after the results of the McPherson Study in Falmouth a year ago, will the Falmouth Board of Health, Town administration and State Depts. of Public Health and Environmental Protection discount these studies too? Will you?
Blowin Smoke
10:30 pm on Saturday, January 5, 2013
Mr. Cool refers to Nissenbaum's paper, but he neglected to mention that ALL THREE authors are on the advisory board of an anti-wind group! See for yourself:
http://www.windvigilance.com/home/advisory-group
In fact, Nissenbaum and co-author Hanning are on the board of directors, while 3rd author Aramini is a scientific advisor to the society for wind vigilance... So their work is unvarnished propaganda.
Bill Carson
11:00 pm on Saturday, January 5, 2013
Did you ever wonder how during World War II the German "ordinary citizens" were unaware of the crimes which were committed in their midst ,in their names and with their permission ?
The wind turbines in Falmouth boil down to Falmouth town economics against the health of citizens. The town and state authorities continue to ignore multiple low frequency studies and discount thousands of residents complaints from Fairhaven, Falmouth, Scituate and Kingston.
The only way to stop the irresponsible placement of commercial megawatt turbines is to widely publicize the evidence and educate the public to prevent atrocities.