Portland plans for possibility of wind power

Posted July 15, 2011, at 9:43 a.m.
Last modified July 15, 2011, at 3:03 p.m.
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PORTLAND, Maine — Portland planners are getting ready should someone seek to erect wind turbines in the Maine city.

The Portland Planning Board unanimously approved this week a 16-page ordinance to regulate turbines installed by residents, businesses or the city.

The ordinance would prohibit turbines in the city’s historic landscape districts, but it would allow turbines on residential and commercial properties, if they meet certain height and sound restrictions and don’t “substantially obstruct public views.”

It would allow turbines as tall as 160 feet in some areas, a common height for many 100-kilowatt turbines.

City Planner Jean Fraser tells the Portland Press Herald the ordinance is trying to find a balance between those people who don’t want any residential wind turbines and those who do.

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  • Anonymous

    There goes the neighborhood.

  • Anonymous

    There goes the neighborhood.

  • Anonymous

    There goes the neighborhood.

  • Anonymous

    Why do I think that ex-Greenepeacer Rep John Hinck and his wife, Verrill Dana’s “wind lady” attorney Juliet Browne would be the first to protest turbines near their Portland residence, but feel it’s just fine to shove 1,800 four hundred foot turbines down the throats and ear canals of rural Mainers?

  • Anonymous

    Kittery’s wind turbine failed:http://www.fosters.com/apps/pb…Saco’s wind turbine failed:http://www.pressherald.com/new…The University of Maine’s $ 2 million industrial wind turbine failed:http://www.windtaskforce.org/p…Every industrial wind complex in the state hides its production data with the excuse that it’s “confidential”. Yet every one of these plants is failing to produce as promised. But that’s OK because their real quarry was never wind in the first place but rather mammoth subsidies, extracted from the pockets of the American taxpayer.The average person has never taken the time to peel back the layers of the onion on wind power and figures “what’s not to like?”, grouping wind power in there with motherhood and apple pie.It’s good to see that at least some in Portland are starting to question this power source. When they do, they’ll start to realize it’s near 100% scam.

  • Anonymous

    Kittery’s wind turbine failed:http://www.fosters.com/apps/pb…Saco’s wind turbine failed:http://www.pressherald.com/new…The University of Maine’s $ 2 million industrial wind turbine failed:http://www.windtaskforce.org/p…Every industrial wind complex in the state hides its production data with the excuse that it’s “confidential”. Yet every one of these plants is failing to produce as promised. But that’s OK because their real quarry was never wind in the first place but rather mammoth subsidies, extracted from the pockets of the American taxpayer.The average person has never taken the time to peel back the layers of the onion on wind power and figures “what’s not to like?”, grouping wind power in there with motherhood and apple pie.It’s good to see that at least some in Portland are starting to question this power source. When they do, they’ll start to realize it’s near 100% scam.

  • Anonymous

    Kittery’s wind turbine failed:http://www.fosters.com/apps/pb…Saco’s wind turbine failed:http://www.pressherald.com/new…The University of Maine’s $ 2 million industrial wind turbine failed:http://www.windtaskforce.org/p…Every industrial wind complex in the state hides its production data with the excuse that it’s “confidential”. Yet every one of these plants is failing to produce as promised. But that’s OK because their real quarry was never wind in the first place but rather mammoth subsidies, extracted from the pockets of the American taxpayer.The average person has never taken the time to peel back the layers of the onion on wind power and figures “what’s not to like?”, grouping wind power in there with motherhood and apple pie.It’s good to see that at least some in Portland are starting to question this power source. When they do, they’ll start to realize it’s near 100% scam.

  • Anonymous

    Kittery’s wind turbine failed:http://www.fosters.com/apps/pb…Saco’s wind turbine failed:http://www.pressherald.com/new…The University of Maine’s $ 2 million industrial wind turbine failed:http://www.windtaskforce.org/p…Every industrial wind complex in the state hides its production data with the excuse that it’s “confidential”. Yet every one of these plants is failing to produce as promised. But that’s OK because their real quarry was never wind in the first place but rather mammoth subsidies, extracted from the pockets of the American taxpayer.The average person has never taken the time to peel back the layers of the onion on wind power and figures “what’s not to like?”, grouping wind power in there with motherhood and apple pie.It’s good to see that at least some in Portland are starting to question this power source. When they do, they’ll start to realize it’s near 100% scam.

  • Anonymous

    Kittery’s wind turbine failed:http://www.fosters.com/apps/pb…Saco’s wind turbine failed:http://www.pressherald.com/new…The University of Maine’s $ 2 million industrial wind turbine failed:http://www.windtaskforce.org/p…Every industrial wind complex in the state hides its production data with the excuse that it’s “confidential”. Yet every one of these plants is failing to produce as promised. But that’s OK because their real quarry was never wind in the first place but rather mammoth subsidies, extracted from the pockets of the American taxpayer.The average person has never taken the time to peel back the layers of the onion on wind power and figures “what’s not to like?”, grouping wind power in there with motherhood and apple pie.It’s good to see that at least some in Portland are starting to question this power source. When they do, they’ll start to realize it’s near 100% scam.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7ARBFNYJAE23QMOBALXD7FM4W4 gempaint

    I’ve known you long enough to grin and bear it when you get on a soapbox about something, and that’s how I kind of took it whe…n you started posting and speaking out about this anti-wind project stuff. Of course, I can easily shake my head and guffaa from over a hundred miles away, because I live in an outlying semi rural area close to Portland, and the biggest complaint I have is the surreal tax bill since the town of Cumberland greedily rezoned everything along Route 100 as “Residential/Commercial” instead of leaving it residential. They have pushed our house payment out of reach, and we are facing foreclosure.
    But after watching and listening, and seeing the pictures, my little inconvenience is a joke compared with the greed and destruction brought by these wind projects. You weren’t on a soap box at all – you saw it before any of the rest of us did. The wanton greed behind the PERMANENT destruction of entire portions of local ecosystems, the displacement of wildlife habitat, the perversion and scarring of the landscape of what is arguably the most beautiful state in the nation besides Alaska in the name of one thing: GREED.
    Seeing those turbines standing there, seeing the acres of mountaintops simply bulldozed away without a care in the world, knowing that not a single component of those monstrosities came from the United States of America, and not one of them has or will produce a SUSTAINABLE American job… I am flummoxed. I am saddened. I am outraged.
    I am ashamed to live among people who lower themselves to such recklessness and destruction, the unabated raping of Mother Earth, in the name of the almighty dollar bill.
    I see it now, plain as day. I want to drive my 17mpg gas guzzling SUV right up those hills and let it idle with the air conditioning on while I look up and ponder how anyone would do such a thing. And if I stand there for hours and cry at all of the natural wonder and animal lives lost or displaced and burn a whole tank of fuel, I wont be doing one billionth of the damage to the environment that these dispicable blights have, are, and will.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7ARBFNYJAE23QMOBALXD7FM4W4 gempaint

    I’ve known you long enough to grin and bear it when you get on a soapbox about something, and that’s how I kind of took it whe…n you started posting and speaking out about this anti-wind project stuff. Of course, I can easily shake my head and guffaa from over a hundred miles away, because I live in an outlying semi rural area close to Portland, and the biggest complaint I have is the surreal tax bill since the town of Cumberland greedily rezoned everything along Route 100 as “Residential/Commercial” instead of leaving it residential. They have pushed our house payment out of reach, and we are facing foreclosure.
    But after watching and listening, and seeing the pictures, my little inconvenience is a joke compared with the greed and destruction brought by these wind projects. You weren’t on a soap box at all – you saw it before any of the rest of us did. The wanton greed behind the PERMANENT destruction of entire portions of local ecosystems, the displacement of wildlife habitat, the perversion and scarring of the landscape of what is arguably the most beautiful state in the nation besides Alaska in the name of one thing: GREED.
    Seeing those turbines standing there, seeing the acres of mountaintops simply bulldozed away without a care in the world, knowing that not a single component of those monstrosities came from the United States of America, and not one of them has or will produce a SUSTAINABLE American job… I am flummoxed. I am saddened. I am outraged.
    I am ashamed to live among people who lower themselves to such recklessness and destruction, the unabated raping of Mother Earth, in the name of the almighty dollar bill.
    I see it now, plain as day. I want to drive my 17mpg gas guzzling SUV right up those hills and let it idle with the air conditioning on while I look up and ponder how anyone would do such a thing. And if I stand there for hours and cry at all of the natural wonder and animal lives lost or displaced and burn a whole tank of fuel, I wont be doing one billionth of the damage to the environment that these dispicable blights have, are, and will.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7ARBFNYJAE23QMOBALXD7FM4W4 gempaint

    I’ve known you long enough to grin and bear it when you get on a soapbox about something, and that’s how I kind of took it whe…n you started posting and speaking out about this anti-wind project stuff. Of course, I can easily shake my head and guffaa from over a hundred miles away, because I live in an outlying semi rural area close to Portland, and the biggest complaint I have is the surreal tax bill since the town of Cumberland greedily rezoned everything along Route 100 as “Residential/Commercial” instead of leaving it residential. They have pushed our house payment out of reach, and we are facing foreclosure.
    But after watching and listening, and seeing the pictures, my little inconvenience is a joke compared with the greed and destruction brought by these wind projects. You weren’t on a soap box at all – you saw it before any of the rest of us did. The wanton greed behind the PERMANENT destruction of entire portions of local ecosystems, the displacement of wildlife habitat, the perversion and scarring of the landscape of what is arguably the most beautiful state in the nation besides Alaska in the name of one thing: GREED.
    Seeing those turbines standing there, seeing the acres of mountaintops simply bulldozed away without a care in the world, knowing that not a single component of those monstrosities came from the United States of America, and not one of them has or will produce a SUSTAINABLE American job… I am flummoxed. I am saddened. I am outraged.
    I am ashamed to live among people who lower themselves to such recklessness and destruction, the unabated raping of Mother Earth, in the name of the almighty dollar bill.
    I see it now, plain as day. I want to drive my 17mpg gas guzzling SUV right up those hills and let it idle with the air conditioning on while I look up and ponder how anyone would do such a thing. And if I stand there for hours and cry at all of the natural wonder and animal lives lost or displaced and burn a whole tank of fuel, I wont be doing one billionth of the damage to the environment that these dispicable blights have, are, and will.

  • Anonymous

    Typical, Portlanders on the whole think  it’s OK   (remember those old polls that the wind power developers keep trotting out that show that 80% think wind turbines are wonderful!) to allow developers to keep errecting 43-49 story tall wind turbines in all the rural parts of Maine but God forbid anyone errect more then a mini-model within the Portland City limits.  Now there’s NIMBYism at it’s best!  What’s the matter, you don’t think 430-490 ft. tall turbines with all the noise they generate would fit harmoniously on the Eastern or Western Proms where they actually might stand a much better chance of generating ernergy than most all of the projects in rural and upstate Maine?  Why not plant a few on the islands of Casco Bay? How about Deering Oaks?  How about on top of Dana Verrill’s building where Ms.Browne/Hinck  has made her fortunes cramming these grid scale projects down the throats of rural towns because they’re too small and too poor to defend themselves. 

    Say “No” to wind power in general – it doesn’t work, isn’t “green”, won’t cut our CO2 levels, won’t “get us off foreign oil” and are nothing more than a rich man’s scam to get richer off all of our tax dollars.   A national scam to gooble up Federal, State, and Local tax dollars and subsidies at an alarming rate …. nothing more, nothing less.  Wake up people, this scam is being foisted on us under the guise of “green energy” and anyone who studies this subject knows that’s the biggest lie of all.

  • Penny Gray

    I think it’s an excellent idea to put the industrial turbines on top of all of Portland’s tallest buildings in the downtown area.  That would elevate them another several hundred feet, heck, almost into the jet stream.  Best of all, Portland would be visible for many many miles out to sea.  I bet you could even see Maine’s Greenest City from Mount Washington!  Whoa, wait!  What’s even better than that, we tax payers wouldn’t have to fund the multi billion dollar CMP transmission line upgrade because this would keep the turbines out of the rural unspoiled scenic areas of our state and put them right where they belong, where all the people are.  A win/win scenario!

  • Penny Gray

    I think it’s an excellent idea to put the industrial turbines on top of all of Portland’s tallest buildings in the downtown area.  That would elevate them another several hundred feet, heck, almost into the jet stream.  Best of all, Portland would be visible for many many miles out to sea.  I bet you could even see Maine’s Greenest City from Mount Washington!  Whoa, wait!  What’s even better than that, we tax payers wouldn’t have to fund the multi billion dollar CMP transmission line upgrade because this would keep the turbines out of the rural unspoiled scenic areas of our state and put them right where they belong, where all the people are.  A win/win scenario!

  • G. Alan Woods

    “It would allow turbines as tall as 160 feet in some areas…”

    The Franklin Towers building in Portland is Maine’s tallest building at 204 feet tall. 

    Do you suppose they would allow a 160 foot tall turbine on top of the Franklin Towers building?

    Not likely!!

    And yet 204′+160′=364′ combined height and that is 64 feet shorter than the turbines First Wind hopes to put on Bowers Mountain just north of the Downeast Lakes Region!

    There is something clinically wrong with people who are worried about “substantially obstructing public views” and yet would destroy Bowers Mountain which has no fewer than 14 lakes within 8 miles that are recognized as being scenic resources of state and national significance! How do these people sleep at night?

  • G. Alan Woods

    “It would allow turbines as tall as 160 feet in some areas…”

    The Franklin Towers building in Portland is Maine’s tallest building at 204 feet tall. 

    Do you suppose they would allow a 160 foot tall turbine on top of the Franklin Towers building?

    Not likely!!

    And yet 204′+160′=364′ combined height and that is 64 feet shorter than the turbines First Wind hopes to put on Bowers Mountain just north of the Downeast Lakes Region!

    There is something clinically wrong with people who are worried about “substantially obstructing public views” and yet would destroy Bowers Mountain which has no fewer than 14 lakes within 8 miles that are recognized as being scenic resources of state and national significance! How do these people sleep at night?

  • G. Alan Woods

    “It would allow turbines as tall as 160 feet in some areas…”

    The Franklin Towers building in Portland is Maine’s tallest building at 204 feet tall. 

    Do you suppose they would allow a 160 foot tall turbine on top of the Franklin Towers building?

    Not likely!!

    And yet 204′+160′=364′ combined height and that is 64 feet shorter than the turbines First Wind hopes to put on Bowers Mountain just north of the Downeast Lakes Region!

    There is something clinically wrong with people who are worried about “substantially obstructing public views” and yet would destroy Bowers Mountain which has no fewer than 14 lakes within 8 miles that are recognized as being scenic resources of state and national significance! How do these people sleep at night?

  • G. Alan Woods

    “It would allow turbines as tall as 160 feet in some areas…”

    The Franklin Towers building in Portland is Maine’s tallest building at 204 feet tall. 

    Do you suppose they would allow a 160 foot tall turbine on top of the Franklin Towers building?

    Not likely!!

    And yet 204′+160′=364′ combined height and that is 64 feet shorter than the turbines First Wind hopes to put on Bowers Mountain just north of the Downeast Lakes Region!

    There is something clinically wrong with people who are worried about “substantially obstructing public views” and yet would destroy Bowers Mountain which has no fewer than 14 lakes within 8 miles that are recognized as being scenic resources of state and national significance! How do these people sleep at night?

  • G. Alan Woods

    “It would allow turbines as tall as 160 feet in some areas…”

    The Franklin Towers building in Portland is Maine’s tallest building at 204 feet tall. 

    Do you suppose they would allow a 160 foot tall turbine on top of the Franklin Towers building?

    Not likely!!

    And yet 204′+160′=364′ combined height and that is 64 feet shorter than the turbines First Wind hopes to put on Bowers Mountain just north of the Downeast Lakes Region!

    There is something clinically wrong with people who are worried about “substantially obstructing public views” and yet would destroy Bowers Mountain which has no fewer than 14 lakes within 8 miles that are recognized as being scenic resources of state and national significance! How do these people sleep at night?

  • Anonymous

    Are they at least thinking of the citizens? That is more than Lincoln did, greedily pandering to the big landowners whose indifference toward others will not soon be forgotten. Wind folly enables coal plants to keep polluting by buying RECs to meet their capricious and arbitrary C02 goals. Wind predators are the worst developers to ever hit Maine. They do not care about anyone or anything except their own wallets.

  • Anonymous

    Are they at least thinking of the citizens? That is more than Lincoln did, greedily pandering to the big landowners whose indifference toward others will not soon be forgotten. Wind folly enables coal plants to keep polluting by buying RECs to meet their capricious and arbitrary C02 goals. Wind predators are the worst developers to ever hit Maine. They do not care about anyone or anything except their own wallets.

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