Maine ocean windfarm bill work session to be continued on Tuesday afternoon, Today's 2 hour 5-sided slugfest left no clear winner yet.

Comment

Comment by Joanne Moore on March 19, 2010 at 12:03pm

Hello Lisa, You're darned right! It must be exhausting to fight this battle one town at a time. Just hold on to this -- if we can run these bast*rds off the shoreline, they won't have the money to launch a full offensive inland. I have heard them say that they need the financing and subsidies they hope the state will give them in order to build more turbines in northern and western Maine. When the potential investors know that Maine is not an easy target, they will stay away. And if investors are leery of Maine, there goes some of the financing they were hoping for. It's all about money. Gobs of it. If we can stave them off for just a little while longer many of the bloodsuckers will be discouraged. The best thing any town can do right now is get a moratorium and an ordinance in place pronto. I think of you in the hills every day and am anguished at what you have to go through. Some days are better than others but there are days when it seems such a huge burden, this fight for our right to live in peace and quiet. And they call this progress. Bah! I spit on their progress!

Comment by Long Islander on March 19, 2010 at 11:49am

I believe Habib also tried to make it sound that deepwater would be potentially less expensive because you build them on shore and avoid offshore cranes. While I have no reason to believe his work in composites is not laudable, I also think he is fast becoming the poster child for wishful thinking.

Comment by Lisa Lindsay on March 19, 2010 at 10:09am

I do love irony. But this is painful. This one-town-at-a-time thing has got to stop. It's all we have at the moment--fighting every day to run them off. It is very frustrating and incredibly insulting that those of us in the hills are not being heard.

Comment by Art Brigades on March 19, 2010 at 10:01am

For those who weren't listening, the administration and the Windies came in with hat-in-hand. They heard the outcries at last week's public hearing and they scaled it back quite a bit. They took out a lot of the language that would attempt to force Maine into converting to electric cars and electric heat, which would be powered by 25 cent ocean-generated (mostly wind) electricity. They backed off the "near shore" wind idea, saying that they want to focus on "far shore" or "deepwater" wind projects. When a committeemember asked why they want to go out where it'll cost more, Habib Dagher stepped to the microphone to answer.

He said that near shore is stuck in the sea bed, while far shore is floating. Europe has lots of near shore in place, with one (remember the Press Herald trade mission last fall?) far shore turbine. He said it:
"makes more sense to go out there for two reasons. First, the wind is a little bit better. But the big reason is that when you put them 10 miles out, nobody has to look at them and you don't run into as many ramifications of dealing with them, like fisheries. The curvature of the earth makes it so they are pretty much beyond the horizon so you don't have to see them."

Well then the committee asked if any of the stakeholders had comments. Freinds of Maine Mountains got up and said:

"We appreciate that Dr. Dagher has a sensitivity to the issues arising from proximity to turbines. Indeed, their ability to ruin the landscape and their harmful interaction with traditional uses should be considered. So we propose that the law be amended to include a 10 mile setback both offshore and onshore."

The committee and the Windies in the audience all laughed. They actually laughed that someone would point out the hypocrisy in a ten mile setback for beach homes, while 600 feet for the rest of us is adequate. Run em off, folks. Run em off.