Fred Huntress Jr. : Protect Maine's mountains forever

Congratulations to Gov. Paul LePage for introducing a bill to repeal the Expedited Windpower Act, enacted in 2008. It is about time the Legislature repealed that act, which is destroying Maine’s mountains.

The 2008 act was prepared by a top-heavy group of power companies, developers and conservation organizations. There is no mention in their report of preventing damage to the fragile mountains and the surrounding ecosystems.

Those same mountains are the sponges that collect and store water from rain and snow and release it gradually into springs and brooks, which provide clean water for Maine’s rivers and lakes.

Wind power projects destroy those mountains by creating massive roads up the steep slopes, blasting huge holes in the ledges and clear cutting swaths of forest land for transmission lines.

All of that destruction is done under the guise of providing renewable energy for states south of Maine.

The energy may be renewable, but the mountains are not.

I hope that the responsible citizens of Maine will strongly support Gov. LePage’s plan to protect Maine’s mountains forever.

Fred Huntress Jr., Poland Spring

http://www.sunjournal.com/protect-the-mountains-forever/

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Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on February 14, 2018 at 10:11am

Eric A. Tuttle >>> Midnight Tree Bandit •

So your logic is that we "Must" destroy more land, this time in places like Maine because it prevents further damage to already destroyed places. Maine wind is seldom near Name Plate Rating output on any given day. If it were, they would make the production made know daily to the public as a bragging point.

https://www.electricitymap....

To reach the Name Plate Rating the wind speed would have to be 55.9 Mph. At 27.8 Mph the output is 1/8 of Nameplate rating and at 13 mph it calculates to be 1/64th of Nameplate rating. Most of Maine's wind that is of any real value is Coastal, though mostly outside the 35-mile zone which would be out of view from shore.

If you feel that Maine / Northern New New England Wind is such a good resource, then any place along the Appalachians should be just as suitable.

Why not Turbines from every structure in the Cities that need the power. I'm sure it will create new jobs to retrofit these structures to accommodate the additional weight of these 500+ foot pinnacles of power along with reducing line losses from transmission.

One wrong past or present does not justify more wrongs in anyone's backyard. And Maine has long been the backyard of a lot of vacationers, though soon to be, no more. No more than a Plantation controlled by foreign nations.

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on February 13, 2018 at 10:33am

F. Huntress Jr.: Wind power destructive

I disagree with Elliott Epstein’s opinion (March 16) that wind power is “free.” There is a price to be paid by the destruction of Maine’s mountains. It may not be visible to the average user of electricity, but it is real.

The hidden cost is the destruction of the Maine mountains, the loss of wildlife habitat, the reduction of water quality and the loss of the scenic value of Maine’s mountains. Wind energy may be renewable, but the mountains are not.

The construction of wind turbines on the tops of the mountains requires a turnpike-size road winding up to the top; blasting huge holes in the ledge that are filled with concrete and rebar; a road along the top connecting the towers; and a power line connecting the turbines with the power grid.

That is heavy industrial construction on the most fragile sites in Maine.

SOURCE

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Vince Lombardi 

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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