Unity adopts moratorium on high-voltage power lines as it codifies opposition to power corridor

Ban the damn thing outright with an ordinance. It's all for a useless BS wind project that is built on pure lies, designed solely to enrich the same crew who ran First Wind and destroyed many a Maine resident's paradise.

Forget about arguing for a different route. Stop it cold altogether. Study "green energy" and you will soon understand that it is the largest crock of total Bsh_t that has come along in our lifetimes. Those in favor of renewable energy need to take a closer look and trade political correctness for common sense. The goal of 100% renewable energy is delusional and a road back to the stone age. You are being played. The window for being naive is closing. Do not believe a single word of any promises made to you by the power line pushers.

Residents voted at a special town meeting Thursday to adopt a 180-day moratorium that pushes back against state plans for the Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project.

By Dylan Tusinski

Morning Sentinel

EXCERPTS

UNITY — Residents voted at a special town meeting Thursday to adopt a 180-day moratorium on high-voltage power lines in town, making Unity the latest to codify its opposition to a proposed transmission corridor expected to cost in excess of $1 billion.

The vote was unanimous among the roughly 45 residents at the meeting. Selectman Tim Parker Jr. said the moratorium is meant to send a message to LS Power, the Missouri-based utility that plans to connect energy generated by wind farms in Aroostook County with consumers in southern Maine and Massachusetts. The project would require a transmission corridor extending approximately 150 miles into central Maine.

“I think that collaboratively, the more towns that jump onto this, the more teeth we have,” Parker said. “Hopefully it will make (LS Power) pick a different alternative route.”

The moratorium is set to expire in May but it includes a provision allowing selectmen to renew the 180-day period for up to a year and a half.

The vote makes Unity the latest municipality to adopt a moratorium on power line construction in response to the Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project. Ten other towns have take similar steps, including Albion, Etna, and Palermo, according to Associate Professor Joshua Kercsmar of Unity Environmental College.

Kercsmar is a board member of Preserve Rural Maine, an organization established in opposition to the Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project. He said Unity’s moratorium and others like it aren’t meant to prevent the project from moving forward.

“The moratorium is really intended to give towns a chance to get some ordinance language around how we want these lines to come through the towns,” he said Wednesday. “It’s not our intent to stop the process and we have no illusions that we can just totally put a halt on the project. In fact, many of us don’t want to do that because we’re in favor of green energy.”

Kercsmar said much of the opposition to the project comes from residents concerned that, among other things, the power lines would decrease property values and essentially fracture areas by cutting through farmland and forests.............................................

Doug Mulvey, vice president of project development at LS Power, said Thursday that the corridor is necessary to meet Gov. Janet Mills’ goal to get 100% of Maine’s electricity from renewable power sources by 2040, and that the company is incorporating residents’ concerns in its plans for the project.

..............The corridor was proposed by LS Power Maine, a subsidiary of LS Power. Aroostook County lacks a connection to New England’s electric grid, but the project plans to address that by building substations in Glenwood Plantation and either Plymouth or Dixmont before connecting them to transmission lines.

The project received support from the Maine Public Utilities Commission and state Legislature before being approved by Mills in June.

State approval of the project is just an initial step in what is expected to be a yearslong process to secure permits from several regulatory agencies. LS Power is pushing to have land clearing begin in 2026 with the corridor completed in 2028.

After holding a series of open houses in towns along the proposed corridor, Mulvey said LS Power has begun considering alternate routes to accommodate residents’ concerns. The utility is planning to propose other routes early next year, he said.

“We feel that we need to add some additional alternative routes to the map, and come out with additional routes,” he said. “We’re not certain how many we have right now, nor the exact schedule.”

“We’re really early in this process,” he added. “We haven’t figured out a final route yet.”

https://www.centralmaine.com/2023/11/17/unity-adopts-moratorium-on-...

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