Based on sound level testing done last year for the Scituate Wind turbine, results indicate the turbine is in compliance with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Noise Policy.

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Dive Brief:

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 “The allegations made by the Massachusetts Democrats are unfounded and uninformed. In reality, the Department of the Interior carries out the appropriate environmental review of impacts of all energy projects – renewable and non-renewable—based on the following: the law, the facts and often after extensive public input.”

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The committee also recommended appropriating $2.5 million to fund the disposition of the town’s two wind turbines. “The $2.5 million is to dismantled and disassemble,” Town Manager Julian M. Suso said. “It is not even to relocate them at this point.”

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This RFQ is part of the town’s effort to relocate and operate its two Vestas 1.65-megawatt, V-82 wind turbines with 80-meter-tall towers from the wastewater treatment plant site on Blacksmith Shop Road to an alternative location outside Falmouth. In June, Mr. Suso said he expected to issue an RFP regarding the wind turbines within 30 days. The matter proved more complicated than expected.

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Interior ordering supplemental study of Vineyard Wind project The Trump administration cast the fate of the nation’s first major offshore wind farm into doubt by extending an environmental review for the $2.8 billion Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts.

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“Comments received from stakeholders and cooperating agencies requested a more robust cumulative analysis,” BOEM spokesman Tracey Moriarty said in an email. “Considering such comments, and taking into account recent state offshore wind procurement announcements, BOEM is expanding its cumulative analysis of projects within its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to also include projects that have been awarded power purchase agreements, but may not have submitted Construction and Operations Plans (COPs), and potential scenarios based on state procurements that are expected to be awarded.”

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The Alchemy Farm Neighborhood Association filed a complaint on the commercial use in their midst last fall, which prompted Falmouth Building Commissioner Rod Palmer to issue a cease-and-desist order for the solar operation on Feb. 6. Palmer also issued an order to dismantle a pole barn on the property.

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Responses ranged from hosting the turbines to purchasing them. There was also a single offer to purchase the base and leave it onsite for use in constructing a cell tower. The letters are a first step in moving the massive pair beyond town borders.

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The three electric distribution companies in Massachusetts have together issued a request for a second round of offshore wind energy, ...The utility companies are seeking a levelized price per megawatt-hour lower than the price settled on with Vineyard Wind in the first contract, as the law requires.

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Officials have started working toward moving two town-owned wind turbines beyond Falmouth’s borders Wednesday with publication of an advertisement in the Central Register seeking letters of interest from any public and private property owner “with enough land, wind resource and electrical interconnection capacity” to host one or both of the massive pair.

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“The Wall Street Journal published a scathing editorial on the experience of Falmouth, Massachusetts, which spent $10 million on wind turbines, and it’s been a disaster,” Rep. McClintock said at the hearing. “That small town went deeply into debt to finance them. The townspeople couldn’t bear the noise, the constant flickering of light as 400-foot windmills turned and property values plunged 20 percent. I wonder how that squares with the bright picture that you’ve painted.”

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Dellinger, a lobsterman, had said in December that “the industry doesn’t want a mitigation strategy.” “The whole process needs to slow down,” he said. “We’re in such a rush.” Among the points of contention is Vineyard Wind’s planned layout. Commercial fishermen want an east-west grid pattern but Vineyard Wind currently has a northeast-to-southwest grid plan.

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“The project team hasn’t heard anything from (the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) as the agency remains shuttered,” Vineyard Wind spokesman Scott Farmelant said. An email to a spokeswoman for the bureau generated an automatic response that she is out of the office and not authorized to work at this time because of the shutdown.

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Selectmen voted 4-0-1, with Selectman Samuel H. Patterson abstaining, to not relocate the turbines within the town. The board then voted unanimously to ask town administration to create requests for proposals to either leasing property outside of Falmouth to run the wind turbines, sell the turbines, or re-purposing a wind turbine tower as a cellphone and repeater tower.

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Falmouth Massachusetts – The town that once was host to Governor Deval Patrick’s flagship wind energy project on Cape Cod and the Islands pronounced the Falmouth turbines dead.

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The disassembly marks at least the third time in the last four years that the Applied turbine — the tallest of the three within the industrial park — has been shut down for an extended period of time.

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The town is contractually obligated to buy power from owners of the privately owned Wind 2 turbine. But that electricity, at $116/MWh, is twice the cost of the ELD’s averaged portolio ...“Therefore, if anything, the rates will experience some very limited relief from this event.”

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Weston and Sampson, engineers hired by the town to look at logistics and costs related to dismantlement and removal of the turbines, are scheduled to present their findings to selectmen Monday at 8 p.m., during the board’s regular meeting in Town Hall.

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 Barnstable and Vineyard Wind officials have signed a host community agreement that includes $16 million in payments to the town in return for the offshore wind energy developer landing a high-voltage electric power transmission cable at William H. Covell Memorial Beach rather than via a disputed route through Lewis Bay in West Yarmouth. But a final decision on the transmission cable route, the landing location and other details is still to be determined. 

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