Scituate Folks Can’t Sleep while Fairhaven Residents Can’t Meet

In his reporting on wind turbine impacts, reporter Dan Hausle (Sleepless in Scituate: Turbines keep many awake) recounts the issues town residents are bringing to the Board of Health.

They say since it started spinning last march, they can’t sleep and are dealing with other health problems.

The video on turbine flicker, the strobing light that the McKeever family of four lives with, is edited from a Youtube clip into the WHDH 7 NBC report.

At a town health board meeting, residents who live near the turbine complain the flicker and noise is costing them sleep the stress, affecting their work and their children’s school.

“It sounds like you’re sleeping next to LaGuardia…you don’t buy a house in Scituate to have the LaGuardia-like experience,” said Tom Thompson.

Meanwhile on the same night the Scituate Board of Health heard these complaints, the Fairhaven Board of Health meeting encountered intense pressure to take up the questions raised by Selectman Bob Espindola (who was not present because the select board was meeting at the same time). The questions relate to a wind turbine bylaw draft proceeding through the town boards.

According to South Coast Today‘s Ariel Wittenberg,  the Fire Chief shuts down overcrowded Health Board meeting when 35 residents arrived for the scheduled meeting–held in a room that seats 12.

Refusals made by two Board of Health members to address the agenda item

angered members of Windwise, who accused the board of being “numb” to residents’ health concerns about the turbines.

“There is a health crisis in this town you are ignoring,” Dawn Devlin said.

John Methia agreed, saying “You’ve got a room full of people with headaches and sleep deprivation and frayed nerves that you’re ignoring.”