“Nobody here likes this". The turbines would be spread out on three sides of the 7,000-plus acre Great Heath.

Note that the Great Heath is the largest raised bog (or peatland) in the state of Maine.

Website for Downeast Wind's owner, Apex Clean Energy:

https://www.apexcleanenergy.com/leadership/

Apex is seemingly privately held. Who are their backers?

The following appears to be the Facebook page for wind discussion around Schoodic Lake. (It seems you do not need to be Facebook member to read their page).

https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Community/Schoodic-Lake-Was...

Virginia wind energy firm proposes to erect 30 turbines in western Washington County

By Bill Trotter, BDN Staff • December 21, 2019 1:00 am

COLUMBIA, Maine — A wind energy firm based in Virginia is proposing to erect 30 turbines in western Washington County, spread out around state-owned public reserved land in Township 18.

A group of camp owners on Schoodic Lake are unhappy with the proposal from Downeast Wind and made their feelings known Thursday evening at a public meeting at the Columbia town office.

Downeast Wind officials said at the meeting that they are considering around 40 sites at the moment, but plan to submit an application to the state for approval of only 33 sites, of which they expect to use only 30. They said they hope to use Vestas V150 turbines for the installation, each of which has a projected peak output of 4.2 megawatts and would stand 650 feet tall at the highest tip of each rotating blade — more than double the height of the Statue of Liberty and almost 200 feet taller than the average wind turbine in the U.S. The entire project would have a production capacity of 126 megawatts.

The turbines would be spread out on three sides of the 7,000-plus acre Great Heath, an area that includes 5,600 acres in Township 18 that are owned and protected by the state. Potential turbine locations identified by Downeast Wind range from Township 19 between Montegail Pond and a decommissioned Air Force backscatter radar array, to the west bank of the Pleasant River in townships 24 and 18, to eight possible sites stretching along Baseline Road in Columbia.

Robert McKay, a Bangor man who owns a seasonal camp on the north shore of Schoodic Lake — which is split between Columbia, Cherryfield and Township 18 — said that the presence of turbines southeast of the lake in Columbia, roughly 2 to 4 miles from his camp on the lake’s north shore, would have a major impact on his enjoyment of the property.

“Nobody here likes this,” McKay said, referring to roughly 50 people who attended the meeting, many of whom are Schoodic Lake camp owners.............................

.......................................Officials with Downeast Wind, a subsidiary of Apex Lean Energy in Charlottesville, Virginia, said they have spent years refining their plans, which at one point included potentially 57 turbines and in 2014 centered mainly on Columbia and Cherryfield. The company has lined up lease agreements with multiple property owners, including Cherryfield Foods, for all of the sites where turbines would be erected.

Paul Williamson, senior development manager for Downeast Wind, said that all of the proposed sites exceed property line setbacks required by Columbia and the state, and stressed that the company has made an effort to contact all the camp owners around Schoodic Lake to hear their concerns — though some of the camp owners responded that they have only been contacted in recent weeks..................................

Please read the full article at:

https://bangordailynews.com/2019/12/21/news/down-east/virginia-wind...

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