After the local opposition group Duxbury Wind Wise made its presentation, Duxbury’s selectmen voted to recommend that the town’s Alternative Energy Committee give up a plan to seek local funding to continue its study of the North Hill site.
While the energy committee has not yet made a proposal to build a wind turbine, it had released a feasibility study pointing to the town-owned North Hill property as the most probable site if the town decides to move forward.
That prompted opponents, accompanied by an experienced attorney, to outline for selectmen what they see as the dangers of wind power and the inadequacies of the town’s feasibility study.
“Mass. Windwise is a very well-organized and well-funded group,’’ Alternative Energy Committee chairman Jim Goldenberg said of the presentation on the dangers of wind generation, including images of turbines in flames.
“They have supplied the Duxbury opposition,’’ he said. “They have brought in their resources and arguments and studies. We’ve been hit hard with this fierce opposition. I don’t think it’s homegrown. It’s certainly funded by somebody.’’
Members of Duxbury Wind Wise, however, are paying the bill for attorney Chris Siene to represent them. While Siene acknowledged that some information presented to Duxbury officials was based on out-of-state sources, he said much of it was relevant to Duxbury’s situation.
“We’re not getting it quite right,’’ he said of municipal wind turbines like the one being studied for Duxbury. “We have to figure out how to size them.’’
While the energy committee is still far from recommending that the town build a turbine on North Hill, a site adjacent to the town golf course with relatively few residential neighbors, Goldenberg said it is holding open the option of seeking funds from Town Meeting to continue studying the site.
Using a state grant to explore renewable energy options, the committee’s study concluded that a North Hill turbine would have to be 276 feet tall and produce 900 kilowatts of energy to be cost effective.
