Watch this video if you’d like a brief summary of the likely goings-on in Augusta during the upcoming legislative session.

What all opponents of industrial wind turbines in Maine wilderness areas come to realize is that idealism is not a very practical tool in this fight. Outrage and indignation about "what’s right” don't really matter --- which is hard to accept. In fact, one of the first lessons we all learn is that if we’re not careful and we don’t pay attention, wind developers have no hesitation at all about using very sneaky maneuvers. The only way for us to counter is to be in Augusta to watch them like a hawk. (NEED AN EXAMPLE of how sneaky the wind industry is? Read this REVEALING INVESTIGATIVE REPORT.)

We all have to be vigilant and share information. Count on FMM to always be investigating what’s going on in the hallways and hearing rooms at the Statehouse, at the regulatory agencies, and in the courts. And of course, we’re always happy to know what YOU are hearing out in the field. If you ever want to pass along information, please feel free to reach us at mainemountainfriends@gmail.com.

(Weld, Maine) Earlier this month, the Maine Supreme Court handed wind industrialists a landmark defeat.

Now, a Maine environmental group is following that up by mailing instructions this week to 6,000 registered voters in Maine’s unorganized territory, part of an educational campaign to explain how to "opt out" of Maine's Expedited Permitting Area for Wind Energy, also called the Expedited Area (EA).

Funded and distributed by Friends of Maine’s Mountains (FMM), the mailer spells out how residents of the state’s most remote townships and plantations can obtain a petition from the Maine Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC). With very few signatures, petitions can remove all or part of these localities from the Expedited Area, which means that any future wind development would need to win zoning approval from LUPC before it applies for a permit.

Wind projects proposed in these areas are currently not required to do so. The unorganized territory comprises the majority of the state’s land mass, but it is home to just one percent of the population. The EA was shrewdly created in a little-understood maneuver of the Maine Legislature, when it unanimously passed the Wind Energy Act in 2008. Lawmakers wanted to make it quicker and easier to build industrial wind turbines in rural Maine. The net result was that a tiny percentage of Maine people were stripped of land use rights and protections that citizens in the rest of the state enjoy. More than 50 Maine towns in other parts of the state have adopted protective wind energy ordinances since 2008, but residents of the unorganized territory lost the ability to do the same, the moment Governor John Baldacci signed the Wind Energy Act into law.

“As was revealed by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, the entire process was capricious and secretive,” said Chris O’Neil, a policy consultant to FMM. “The devious manner in which these folks were stripped of their rights was, at the time, grasped by very few.” (Click for additional VIDEO COMMENTARY by Chris O’Neil.)

O’Neil said opposition to wind projects has escalated significantly since the Wind Energy Act passed, but because the Act remains law, applications filed for projects in the Expedited Area are effectively rubber-stamped as they navigate the process to secure a permit. He said that by getting enough signatures on a petition, wind opponents in that part of the state will be able to regain their rights.

“The required number of valid signatures is low, just ten percent of voter turnout total in the last gubernatorial election. So a township in which twenty people voted in 2014 would only need two signatures to secure an effective remedy and opt out,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil warned that there is one catch --- there’s a very short window of time in which LUPC will accept petitions, from January 1 through June 30. He said residents can start gathering signatures now, however, and that at least 25 petitions are already circulating. FMM mailed the instructions Friday, so residents will begin receiving them in the next few days.

To get your petition click here:   http://www.tinyurl.com/GetOut2016

Friends of Maine’s Mountains (FMM) is a nonprofit organization that opposes the environmental and economic destruction from industrial wind energy. For more information: http://www.FriendsofMainesMountains.org.

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