Below are two items from The Falmouth Enterprise, 3/31/2023:
1.The full text of a Letter to the Editor “Substation Ruins Neighborhood”, page 7.
2.Four photos of Vineyard Wind’s construction project at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable, page 9.
Also see aerial photos from 2022 in our website post “Vineyard Wind Cable Installation at Covell’s Beach” along with an FHMNA letter to the Select Board and Town Meeting Members prior to the 2022 April Town Meeting.
_________________________________________
“Substation Ruins Neighborhood”
Last July, I wrote a lengthy letter on why SouthCoast Wind is not clean energy and not a good deal for Falmouth. My feelings have not changed.
Shell Oil is behind this “clean energy” project, and it is ironic since a South African court has upheld a ban imposed on Shell from using seismic waves to explore for oil and gas off the Indian Ocean coast. Shell is concerned about the bottom line and not about how their actions and projects affect people and the environment.
I echo the concerns of Wendi Buesseler’s and Catherine Cetta’s letters about the SouthCoast Wind substation. Others in town have accused those of us who live near where they want to build it as being NIMBY. My argument is that an industrial project of that magnitude, along with the low humming, the ambient light of the structure and possible threat to our water has absolutely no place near any neighborhood.
My jaw dropped when I saw how SouthCoast Wind wants to site the substation on either the Lawrence-Lynch parcel or the Cape Cod Aggregates parcel. This project is way, way too big and will forever ruin these areas. As stewards of this town we have a responsibility to ensure we protect it for future generations, and this is something that will neither enhance nor enrich our town. It will be a white elephant where future generations will say, ”What were they thinking?”
On top of that, putting a substation near people’s homes will devalue the properties and create noise and light pollution, where people are now enjoying dark and quiet nights. It is an outright disrespectful and cruel thing to do to the residents of these areas. This is a stressful situation for those of us living near the proposed sites.
I will reiterate what I wrote in my last letter: didn’t we learn anything from the wind turbines and how they affected people living nearby? To combat the climate crisis we need to do it smart and as clean as possible. SouthCoast Wind’s plan is not smart and not clean if people’s homes and lives will be adversely affected.
Industrial projects belong in industrial areas and not next to neighborhoods.
Moira C. Powers
Thomas B. Landers Road
Falmouth
_________________________________________
After traveling under roadways, Vineyard Wind’s cable will arrive at this electrical substation. ROBIN LUBBOCK/WBUR
In January, Vineyard Wind pulled one of its two wind farm power export cables up from under Covell’s Beach in Barnstable. According to the company’s website, Vineyard Wind won the auction for its lease area in 2015. In 2018, Massachusetts purchased the project’s 800 megawatts of power. In 2021, all state, local, and federal permits were secured. Installation of the undersea power cable began last year. Construction of the 62 wind turbines is expected to begin this summer. SouthCoast Wind has not yet sold the 1,200 megawatts of power it hopes to route through Falmouth; it has sold the 1,200 megawatts it is routing through the Brayton Point, just west of Fall River, the site of a former coal plant. Photos are courtesy of ROBIN LUBBOCK/WBUR
The cable emerges into a trench, seen here in January. When an Enterprise reporter visited the site in late February the trench had been filled in and the parking lot repaved. ROBIN LUBBOCK/WBUR
The cable lay vessel off Covell’s Beach threads the cable under the beach. ROBIN LUBBOCK/WBUR