Long Islander's Blog (3,023)

“We have nothing to gain and everything to lose.” Michael Dawson was one of four Midcoast fishermen who voiced their opposition to a University of Maine-led consortium of 19 other private and public partners interested in developing an experimental off-shore wind farm near Monhegan Island..........

“My concern is we will end up with wind farms from Rockland to Portland, and they will tell lobstermen, ‘You’re out of here!’” said Boothbay Harbor fisherman Andy…

Eagle Nation Foundation founder Terrence Ingram, with 57 years conducting midwinter bald eagle counts, is sounding an alarm that populations of eagles dropped 25 percent between 2010 and 2017......People throughout the Midwest, the Atlantic and other New England states are standing up and saying “Stop!”…

This PPH position is what many of us have been saying for some time. 

Massachusetts wants to put a transmission line across Maine, but won't allow a gas line at home.

Plans to bring low-cost natural gas to New England stalled when Massachusetts courts turned down a financing scheme for pipeline projects that would have connected with gas reserves in the West. That decision keeps Maine manufacturers from taking full advantage of the gas boom…

“In order to be successful, we want more than just birders and that crowd involved,” said Maine Audubon staff naturalist Doug Hitchcox, who’s serving as an atlas outreach coordinator with his Audubon colleague Laura Minich Zitske. …

Once described as "The Most Beautiful Place on Earth" on the cover of U.S. News & World Report, Isle au Haut is now giving thought to wind power down the road. Not surprisingly, the Island Institute seems involved.

"Phase two, which will be installed after the cable fails, will take the lessons learned from phase one and possibly add other renewable technologies, such as wind, to provide electricity when there is extended cloud cover over the solar panels, Wilson…

Regarding peer review studies, for example, consult “Literature Review 2013: Association between Wind Turbine Noise and Human Distress.” Also, Sherri Lange has document the problem in her posts:

‘Sensing but Not Hearing: The Problem of Wind Turbine Noise (Interview with acoustician Steven Cooper, AU)’ February 2, 2018.

‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’ (Science advances, Australia judiciary takes note)‘ January 26, 2018.…

With wind power one of the most controversial issues Maine has ever seen; and with the 2008 expedited wind law "the most radical land use law in Maine history"; is it not newsworthy when the former Governor who personally rammed that wind industry-developed abhorrent law down our throats becomes the …

The manager of New England's power grid says for the first time ever, there are more proposals for new wind power projects than there are for natural gas. But getting those wind turbines up and running is a totally different ballgame.

About half of those new proposed wind projects would be onshore -- in northern parts of New England. But here's the problem: many don't have a way to plug into the grid........…

Gov. Paul LePage’s push to curtail expedited permitting for wind energy projects suffered a serious blow Thursday by Democrats trying to kill the governor’s bill before it can be formally introduced...........

 The bill debated Thursday in the House is a follow-on to that order. It would reduce the expedited permitting area, which currently includes much of Aroostook, Washington, Penobscot and Somerset Counties, to only a portion of…

Another factor in this economic equation is that states like Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are providing subsidies to encourage renewable energy production. According to van Welie, that means that those clean energy projects will be able to “participate in the [energy] markets at artificially low prices,” giving them an advantage over fossil fuel and nuclear plants.…

People must remember that Maine’s $6 billion tourism business is of paramount importance for the long term. Mainers cannot allow the scenic character of Route 27, from Eustis to the border, be ruined.

http://www.sunjournal.com/no-to-wind-power-projects/

BDN - The Maine Public Utilities Commission said Tuesday it would look into customer complaints about skyrocketing bills and poor service by Central Maine Power.

The regulatory agency will start by gathering information about CMP’s metering, billing and customer communications. In the so-called “summary investigation,” it will collect data on whether all issues with CMP’s new billing system have…

George Smith quotes Angus King's praise of the Maine mountains, as in that land form King has trashed with his wind turbine blight for the almighty dollar:

"As Senator Angus King writes in the forward, “The vistas are so wide, the colors so subtle, the forests so deep, that the urge to see for yourself will be pretty hard to resist.” Boy, Angus got that…

Note that this list contains multiple worksheets each with a slightly different view of the information. Specific Clients were identified as "Wind Related" based on judgment. Please let us know if any were missed or miscoded. I'm sure we missed some. Also, we probably could have coded every large Portland law firm as Wind Related but we didn't for this exercise given much of their work falls into areas other than wind.

Guess which Client (whom a lobbyist works for) has the…

Guidestar - the world's largest source of information on nonprofit organizations where you can sign up for a basic account free in just a minute or two and begin reading Form 990 for non-profits and possibly get a glimpse of where they are getting their money. When you read a 990, you might not see everything but sometimes they can be quite interesting.…

By Monique Aniel, Special to the BDN * February 25, 2011

Please stop your support for NRCM, the organization which pushed hard for this disaster to happen. If you do, maybe some of Maine’s mountains can be saved. Or at least let them know how misguided they have been.

But there is a strange twist to my story. I actually posted it on Lisa Puhlman’s blog on the NRCM website, along with two other individuals who…

Even though our LUPC (Land Use Planning Commission) recently rejected Nextera’s petition to expand the expedited permitting areas of Chain of Ponds, Seven Ponds, Alder Brook, Skinner, T5R6 and BKP WKR townships, I find it hard to believe CMP (Avangrid) and Nextera, the parasitic beneficiaries of the bust-up of Maine public utilities, will give up their attempts to continue their ruination of Maine’s scenic character.

As evidenced on Feb. 1, Democrats in the Legislature voted in…

This article talks about the possibility of rolling blackouts and huge price hikes on our electricity bills. It talks about conventional electricity plant closures and inadequate natural gas pipeline.

"As the nation shifts ever more of its power production to natural gas, areas such as Maine that can’t tap directly into the shale deposits where extraction is taking place across the country are dependent on an inadequate supply…

Speaking to the Offaly Independent this week, Mrs Cunningham says that the noise pollution from the turbines, one of the highest in Ireland, has made life intolerable.

“Every day since January 5, being in our hourse and yard has been just a living hell. It’s like living in Dublin Airport or like living beside a helicopter.

“We can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. You can’t go out in the yard, you have to listen to this noise constantly.”…

The company Jim Boyle refers to is Boyle Associates. When you go to their website, you see that among the clients they list are First Wind and CMP.  I believe Boyle was one of First Wind's expert witnesses for the Bowers project which of course failed but would have had devastating impacts on the world class downeast lakes area. 

http://www.boyleassociates.net/clients-projects/

I was never comfortable when…