Towards designing the 'perfect' wind ordinance...my response to John Droz's model.
DESIGNING A WIND ORDINANCE....John Droz has a model ordinance; and I commented on it:
HI….I’ve been through the development of two wind ordinances—Lisbon Falls, and Portland Maine, and addressed a large forum of town planners on the elements of a ‘model’ ordinance, so it’s not without experience I suggest you take this one apart and break it into sections:
- Environmental Impact:
o Acoustical
o Migratory insects and birds
o Loss of biomass due to site, access road and transmission line clearing
o Loss of CO2 conversion consequent to loss of biomass
o Long range impact of herbicide spraying in transmission line corridor
o Water runoff and impact on drainage systems, loss of aquifer storage and water filtration, and downstream water quality
o Environmental habitat assessment and loss of valuable habitat for birds, small mammals, bees, bats, etc.
- Energy Grid Impact:
o Necessity to increase grid capacity to provide replacement power to match loss of power from wind fluctuations
o Necessity to construct new switching and transmission lines,
o Secondary impact of the cost of materials for transmission lines, esp. amount of copper needed to be mined/recycled,
- Maintenance and operation schedule and cost allocation:
o Maintenance schedule
o Allocation of a reserve to maintain turbine
o Designated maintenance provider
- Economic viability of the owner/operator of the wind turbine(s):
o P & L statements for past five years;
o Annual submission of P & L statements;
o Immediate notification of intent to sell all or part of the facility, name/location of buyer.
o Competing sources, i.e. the emerging market including proposed solar, hydro and LNG generation facilities
- Economic viability of the manufacturer of the turbine;
o Years in business,
o Foreign/domestic ownership,
I could add more; but this format gives a legislator a nice check list to go down; your model ordinance is confusing and tedious. K.I.S.S. is essential to a thorough assessment of a wind farm application
Fjh.
Views: 123
Comment
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Comment by Paula D Kelso on April 1, 2016 at 10:38am
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Hi Frank,
As I noted in another blog here, requiring and verifying financial capacity was an especially egregious malfunction for the town of Clifton. I'm especially interested in the section you have on economic viability of the owner/operator.
In our case, we have two somewhat local families looking to make a profit on this wind scam thing. One that had lost the inherited family lumber mill here several years ago and that had also inherited many parcels of wood land in town. Before the mill closing and after, the town had many tax liens on those properties. Always paid off, just before the last minute, but a many years trend in tax liens. the town issued tax abatements for the mill in its last floundering years. For several decades that mill had been the only major employer in town and the major taxpayer. The other family isn't from Clifton. This individual has, to my knowledge, nothing to indicate any resume of investing or developing. In this case too, there are records of tax liens on properties owned, even water and sewer liens on a regular basis.
So here we have these individuals creating an LLC to develop a wind energy facility. So what would be reasonable for a town planning board to require as proof of economic viability of the owner/operator?
We asked for nothing and got nothing. And it has cost the town at least $100,000 over the last six years dealing with this wanna be developer. The town officials dismiss that expenditure as nothing as in the first year of operation the facility will pay way more that in taxes. So regardless of whether there is a TIF or not, the town is helping to finance this project.
Why should Clifton or the state of Maine be put in a position of taking these so-called 'developers' on face value? Why should our Planning Board have shied away from asking tough questions and demanding documentation? Why should the MPUC now take Pisgah Mountain LLC's word that they now still own a 51% share of the proposed facility? If the 'developers' want a green light, they should be compelled to reveal their economic standing and be forthcoming with legal documents as to what financial arrangements there are.
Our planning board guided the town in amending our land use ordinance to protect developers from having to reveal information that might jeopardize them making secret deals. How gullible is that!!!! What can we do???
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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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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