Cape Cod Times Article 3-6-2007

By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
EASTHAM - The difference between opponents and advocates for building four wind turbines on town-owned property is not measured in inches, but hundreds of feet.

Proponents hope that revenues from the turbines would at least offset the town's $170,000 energy costs, and maybe generate even more much-needed income.

A petitioned article on the May 7 town meeting effectively kills the wind turbine proposal by requiring a 1,200-foot setback. Members of the Eastham Energy Committee went to the selectmen last night hoping they would support a zoning bylaw article that contained a setback of 700 feet from nearby homes.

The committee needed the selectmen's support because the planning board, at a public hearing last week, told them they wouldn't support their amended article. The board thought the changes of an amended article were too much for them to consider now.

While the selectmen separately expressed their approval of having an article on the warrant with the lesser setbacks, they decided last night to discuss it more in meetings this week. Town Administrator Sheila Vanderhoef told the board they still had time to submit an amended article to the planning board for a second public hearing later this month.

An opposition spearheaded by abutters to the town-owned property off Nauset Road in North Eastham claims the turbines are too close to homes and represent a danger from possible tower collapse, or blade malfunction, lightning strikes, noise, and the annoyance of shadows flickering from the blades.

''They are modeling their bylaw to accommodate the size of the land rather than the proper safety, health and welfare of the residents of the town,'' Phil Hesse said in an earlier interview. Hesse wrote the petitioned bylaw.

In his presentation last night, energy committee chairman Bob Eastman said the arguments advanced by opponents to the turbine were not based in fact. He said there had never been a fatality or injury in the U.S. due to wind turbine tower collapse or blade malfunction. He said there is no state or national standard on setbacks of towers from properties or homes. In Hull, for instance, homes are just 400 feet from a tower nearly as large as the turbines proposed for Eastham.

Eastman said studies put the risk at one in 1 million over a lifetime of someone getting hit by ice flung from the wind turbine blades. He said the committee has commissioned studies on the impact of the flickering shadow of the rotating blades as well as a noise study, but he did say that all studies showing that wind development affects property values is unsupported.

Doug Fraser can be reached at dfraser@capecodonline.com.

(Published: March 6, 2007)