Scituate and Falmouth Argue for Wind Turbine Relief

David Dardi of Scituate joined three Falmouth residents in telling the legislature’s Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy panel about their quest for relief from wind turbine impacts, especially financial costs. The September 24, 2019 hearing included House Bill 2928, the Wind Energy Relief Act.

“Mistakes can be made,” Dardi said. “Using part of that money [collected for green energy projects] to correct the problems created by wind energy is just and appropriate.” View a clip from the hearing.

Because of inadequate legislation and the softening of the noise regulations dealing with wind turbines it has become very difficult to prove noise violations and in most cases communities and individuals have had to resort to litigation to get relief. In most cases all these measures and actions have proven unsuccessful leaving the communities and individuals without relief and deeply in debt.  In some cases, as in Scituate town officials are considering ordering a unilateral shutdown of a turbine to protect its residents. Action of this nature will undoubtedly result in very high costs due to the penalties imposed by the turbine owner and litigation expenses accrued in defending their action. Why should the mistake of an improper location of a wind turbine result in such high penalties and costs to communities and individuals?

Representative David Vieira introduced H.2928 to help wind turbine neighbors and their communities recover from failed wind projects. It provides two compensation funds: 1.) a $15 million per year Energy Relief Fund for people, businesses, and cities and towns impacted adversely by wind turbines, and 2.) a $7.5 million per year Turbine Decommissioning Fund. The funds will come from the millions of dollars that are already collected from electric ratepayers and then credited to the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust Fund.