EASTHAM — The town’s efforts to erect up to four 400-foot wind turbines in North Eastham were swept away by a mighty squall this week. At a public hearing held Monday by the planning board, more than 70 property owners successfully opposed bylaw that would have permitted the turbines’ construction on a town-owned, 12-acre site off Nauset Road. The planning board ultimately agreed to shelve the proposed bylaw regulating commercial turbines until the town had done at least another year’s worth of planning. However, members did vow to revise a residential turbine bylaw, in time for this spring’s Annual Town Meeting, that would regulate the conditions under which property owners could erect turbines. Overall, the atmosphere of the two-and-a-half-hour hearing was angry and accusatory on the public’s side, rife with allegations that the town — in particular, the ad hoc energy committee charged with developing a wind energy proposal — had not adequately studied potentially deleterious noise and environmental impacts that the commercial turbines would have on the abutting residential neighborhood.

Mayor John Bell, pushing a major private wind-power proposal, has committed his island city to a climate protection agreement aimed at reducing global warming. Bell announced the city would join 320 others across the country that have signed the agreement developed by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Chicago last year.

Along with federal recognition comes a seat at the table for members of the Mashpee Wampanoag, who will have a voice in determining the future of a proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound. Members of the tribal council have made their views clear: While emphasizing support for alternative and renewable energy projects, they oppose Cape Wind Associates’ plans to build 130 turbines on Nantucket Sound. They’ve asked that alternative sites be considered.

Efforts to put a wind turbine on the campus of Holy Name Central Catholic Junior Senior High School earned a major boost last week with the award of $575,000 from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. The grant will cover a big chunk of the project’s $1.6 million cost, and Stephen A. Perla, superintendent of the Diocese of Worcester Catholic Schools, says he is optimistic about raising the remaining $1 million.

MATTAPOISETT - There will be no wind turbine off Brandt Island Road, due to the Mattapoisett Wind Power Committee's decision that it would not be economically viable. The committee voted last week to not pursue a feasibility analysis for a turbine because data from the meteorological tower in the area indicated it would require two turbines in order to generate enough electricity to break even. "It does not make economic sense to pursue that," said Selectman Jordan C. Collyer, who is also a wind power committee member. "We don't have room there for two turbines anyway. It just wasn't going to be worth the effort."

A major report just released in Denmark finds negligible impacts to birds, fish and mammals from the two largest offshore wind farms in the world at Horns Rev and Nysted.
Editor's Note:Jack Coleman is a freelance writer, editor, blogger and former media adviser to the pro-wind farm Clean Power Now non-profit based in Hyannis. A link to the original report is available at the end of this article.

MARSHFIELD - The wastewater treatment plant on Joseph Driebeck Way and the school complex off Forest Street are the best potential sites for what would be Marshfield’s first wind turbine. But the wind turbine generator study committee still has some work to do before it recommends one or two locations, members told selectmen last night. ‘‘The best economic payback is if you can locate the wind turbine generator inside a large area and consume power,’’ said member David Carriere, a public works department engineer. Committee members said having a turbine at the wastewater treatment plant would give the town the biggest bang for the buck, because electricity from the generator could directly supply the plant 24 hours a day.

A day of legal wrangling was punctuated with a victory yesterday for a small religious community that took on a massive communications company for a dream to build a monastery and wind farm in Paxton. The Community of Teresian Carmelites, based at 30 Chrome St., officially signed paperwork to acquire 99 acres of undeveloped land on Asnebumskit Hill, where it plans to build a "green monastery" that will serve as a center of social teaching.

The Teresian Carmelites, a tiny religious community in Worcester, have won their lawsuit against American Tower Corp., which the monks had accused of breaching its agreement to sell them a 99-acre site in Central Massachusetts where they want to build a monastery and wind farm.

Local environmentalists say rules changes proposed by state regulators would cut ordinary citizens out of the democratic process and leave the environment vulnerable to ill-considered development projects. They point to cases where citizen involvement has made a crucial difference in heading off developments, such as a plan to build houses on wetlands adjacent to Silver Lake in Kingston. The environmentally sensitive area ultimately became the Silver Lake Sanctuary, after residents appealed to the Department of Environmental Protection under the state's Wetlands Protection Act. The Department of Environmental Protection last month proposed changes intended to speed up environmental decisions that leave developers hanging for two years or more and imperil financing for worthwhile projects. The new rules would eliminate the right of any 10 residents of a community to appeal a DEP decision to the department's administrative law division for a hearing before an administrative law judge. But state officials say the new rules would retain essential protections.

EASTHAM - A big turnout is expected at 2 p.m. Friday when the Energy Committee meets in town hall with neighbors and abutters to the town property being considered for the placement of up to four wind turbines. The turbines would be erected on two parcels of land off Nauset Road at Railroad Avenue, bordered on the west by the electric utility lines and the Cape Cod Rail Trail, on the north by Wellfleet; and on the east by Oak Leaf Road, Kaits Way, Cross Cart Way, and Cape Cod National Seashore. The site is near a cell tower, the former Tilcon plant and gravel pits. Town Administrator Sheila Vanderhoef said, “We’ve received a lot of e-mails and I think there’ll be a big turnout.”

ACUSHNET - Loranger Power Co. has interested selectmen in the idea of capturing the wind as a way to generate revenue for the community and defray monthly electricity costs. Will Acushnet go green in energy circles? Christain Loranger said the Acushnet Valley Golf Course off Main Street - or the area adjacent to it - might prove suitable for a data recovery turbine and perhaps, in time, for three or four wind turbines measuring 200 feet tall.

EASTHAM - It seems the dream of the former Eastham Energy Committee, to site four 460-foot tall wind turbines on town-owned property in North Eastham, was just that - a dream. There is little likelihood any commercial wind turbine will be erected in Eastham, due to noise and setback concerns. Tom Reilly, chairman of the Wind Turbine Ad Hoc Committee, told selectmen Monday that after five meetings, "a majority of the ad hoc committee feels that there are significant hurdles to siting commercial-scale wind turbines in a residentially zoned area in such a way that the noise impact does not negatively impact nearby residences."

The Air Force has approved siting of a proposed wind turbine at the Massachusetts Military Reservation within a buffer zone around the PAVE PAWS radar station in Sagamore. In June, the U.S. Department of Defense established a 25-kilometer zone around the PAVE PAWS facility within which any proposed wind turbines would require review by military officials. The buffer zone is about 15 ½ miles.

The Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence wants to build a 400-foot wind turbine in the southwestern corner of the Massachusetts Military Reservation on the Upper Cape. The AFCEE announced today that a public comment period will be open from March 19 to April 17. A public presentation of the plan will be held April 11 at 6 p.m. at the Bourne Best Western, 100 Trowbridge St. That location's not far from two of the area's existing turbines, one at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and the other at Upper Cape Regional Technical High School.

The U.S. Air Force Space Command said it has checked and rechecked and still believes a proposed wind farm on Nantucket Sound would not affect its PAVE PAWS radar station in Sagamore. “Everything that the Air Force Space Command is saying indicates that [the turbines] would not be tall enough to interfere with operations,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Gentry, commander of the Air Force 6th Space Warning Squadron, Cape Cod Air Force Station, the group responsible for running the radar facility. But wind farm opponents, specifically the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, point to a larger study now being undertaken by the Department of Defense, one that won’t be available until spring. That study, says the Alliance, will be more comprehensive and was itself prompted by issues with the Air Force’s initial analysis. “Until we have a written report in hand that we can review to understand the parameters of the study, it would be inappropriate to offer comment,” said Charles Vinick, president and CEO of the Alliance. “It is my understanding that there is a larger study under way and it would be premature to offer conjecture on what that might find.”

WASHINGTON - Inside the Beltway, he's made his name as a champion for tapping oil resources in his own state - and for telling the federal government to butt out.

In a letter to Governor-elect Deval Patrick, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has outlined a five-point energy plan for the state. The first of those five points is the selection of an alternative site for Cape Wind Associates’ proposal to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound.

HANCOCK — A proposed amendment to the town's zoning bylaw would restrict the height of cell phone towers and wind turbines to 120 feet, effectively prohibiting additional commercial wind energy projects.

Likening it to a town trying to outlaw strip clubs, Harold "Butch" Malloy has accused the Planning Board of wording its wind turbine bylaw in such a way as to prohibit any wind energy facility in town. Malloy owns 290 acres on West Hill, where Minuteman Wind LLC hopes to put a five-turbine, 12.5 megawatt wind farm. He addressed the board at its Thursday night meeting, which two selectmen also attended. "I believe you think the best way to prohibit wind power in the town is to make the bylaw unusable, the way towns like Williamstown and Hawley have," he told the board. "It's not fair to the people of Savoy. They should have a bylaw they can look at and decide on."