I thought that the wind turbine bylaw was posted to the town website but I could not find it. I have uploaded it and made it available here.
The Town Meeting approved funding for preparation of a wind turbine permit and I have had a few questions about the process. An engineering company will prepare the permit application for two wind turbines on town land in the Paskamansett Valley in accordance with this bylaw and submit it to the Technical Research Group (TRG) for review. The permit and the recommendation of the TRG then goes to the Select Board ...
...which is the Special Permit Granting Authority for a hearing on the permit application. These hearings would be open for public comment. The permit application must address many issues and I will leave it to those with interest to read the bylaw. If approved for a permit, the project can then be built.
I feel that our current bylaw is too restrictive when it comes to the siting of commercial wind turbines. For instance, the approval by the TRG and Select Board require super majorities of the body (4 out of 5 members) to approve the permit. Additionally the setback and open space requirements are such that huge areas are needed in order to site a single turbine. There are commercial size wind turbines in close proximity to structures all around our area. The wind turbines in Hull and Portsmouth are adjacent to school buildings, as is the turbine at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. A commercial sized, albeit relatively small, turbine sits next to I93 going into Boston. None of these installations would be allowed under our bylaw. There are many areas of our town that are ideally suited for wind power generation and therefore, the potential for significant tax revenue from those turbines.
On the positive side, the existence of the bylaw gives potential wind power developers a clear set of criteria to meet when presenting a project for permitting approval.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wind turbine bylaw and town wind turbines
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7 comments:
Windmills are cool! People complained when Colonel Green put up his radome and then everyone cried when it came down.
Windmills are the way to go! Clean energy! We live in a great spot for windmills...on Buzzards Bay. Let's go Dartmouth!
Who was that female "windbag" at TM who couldn't shut up about windmills? And what exactly was her point anyway.
Ahh, no matter the subject I can always count on this blog to bring a touch of class to the subject matter!
Whenever I hear someone refer to a 300' plus high metal structure with blades the size of a 747 as a windmill, I fear they are being disingenuous or perhaps are just uninformed as to the nature of commercial wind enterprises as they are proposed in the Town. We need to see more education in this Town so that people will be able to make rational decisions about what is safe and appropriate not just rely on the data from sources which may or may not have secondary i.e. financial motives.
So inform us then
I can't believe when people worry about the look of a windmill. Progress can be a beautiful thing.
Have you ever seen mountaintop mining? they take a mountain that has coal and level it. the streams run red like blood from oxides emanating from it and all downstream water must be cleaned for hundreds of years. but the local yocals don't have money or political savy and they get victimized.
The crime of American culture is that those with money are allowed to sell a product that does not take into account the true costs to all involved.
Another example is asbestos. Asbestos corporations made billions of dollars selling a product that was unsafe and they knew it. Thousands died from asbestosis. Millions had to pay for asbestos removal.
A handful of people made fortunes and millions lost money on remediation, and thousands lost there lives. US Lawyers are just recently righting wrongs that corporate criminals knew about.
Embrace that wind turbine and lets start clean energy industry. Remediation involves simply demolishing the turbine. No rivers blood red for a thousand years or lives cut short from disease, or even rising ocean levels.
Oh don't get me started on rising ocean levels - you wanna talk catastrophe. Pretty soon New Jersey types will be moving into your neighborhood. OY
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