MassDEP Caught In Wind Turbine Regulatory Capture Corruption

MassDEP represents the interest of the wind turbine industry, not the safety and health of Massachusetts citizens as witnessed over the past ten years in Falmouth Massachusetts.

MassDEP brokered a loan/grant between Massachusetts Clean Water Trust and Town of Falmouth to build the second town-owned wind turbine Falmouth Wind II.

MassDEP provided a Project Regulatory Agreement to the Town of Falmouth using ARRA funds. The ARRA funds were deposited in the Massachusetts State Reserve Fund.

The Project Regulatory Agreement ("PRA") and the Loan Agreement associated with the funding of Wind II, Under Federal Law and the PRA and Loan Agreement, the Town must maintain Wind II as an "energy efficiency" project, as described in EPA guidelines dated March 2, 2009, in order to benefit from the financial subsidy provided by the Trust under ARRA and the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust State Revolving Fund program.

State and town officials had been warned in writing from Vestas wind company the turbines generate 110 decibels of noise and went forward with the project despite health and safety warnings

Thus placing the energy efficiency ahead of safety and health of those around the turbine.

Regulatory Capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, MassDEP, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups such as the wind turbine industry or sector it is charged with regulating.

MassDEP can not in good faith rule on wind turbine projects as they represent the wind turbine industry !