Savoy’s Hearing Brings Out Concerns
About 70 people attended the hearing on an amendment to change the Commercial Wind Energy Facility bylaw. The height of the five turbines in the Minuteman Wind project and their clearance from the ground are changes that must be made so the company can use the blades it wants.
This reconfiguration will allow the project to generate more electricity, and therefore revenue, according to the Berkshire Eagle. While this may assure the town a higher figure on a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, it also means that “The taller these turbines are, the more people are going to be impacted,'” town resident Susan Rosenthal said.
The August 24, 2017 hearing was held in the fire station and instead of being conducted with a list of speakers allowed to make statements without rebuttal, the session was held as a Q&A. One townsperson who attended said the audience did not let the moderator cut off speakers–the residents were interested in hearing from other residents, as well as abutters and two people who have the experience of living near 2.5 megawatt turbines.
Residents later said they were impressed with the turnout and want questions raised about the economic soundness of the venture to be considered.
The scale of the project is represented graphically at the Savoy Song website’s page “Blades that slice through a town:”
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
It is important to be accurate. The speakers who either currently live or formerly lived within a mile of the Industrial Wind Turbines (IWTs) in the Town of Florida, lived near 1.5 MWh machines. The Town of Savoy wants to erect a 5 machine array of 2.5 MWh machines with longer blades. This would impact on more people at a greater distance. Whatever the projected monetary value of these machines, it must be weighed against the harm and possible litigation by, as yet, unknown residents. The Town of Falmouth spent millions of dollars fighting its own residents to keep their own wind turbines running. They lost that battle after eight long years.
My advice would be to weigh very carefully the monetary value to the town vs. the potential for extreme quality of life loss for those located within one mile of the turbines. The bigger they are the more noise, infrasound, and vibrations (from sound power pressure) they produce. Also do not overlook the negative effects of shadow flicker.