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• hasacluemaine

  Abigail, I was there and your reporting is some of the most biased I have ever witnessed. A dozen resident people testified about the impact of noise and the potential of reduced property values that would come from this project. Your pro-wind bias is not the mark of a true journalist. You focused on theonly two emotional and sensational aspects of the meeting when they could be attributed to ordinance supporters. In court, your witten presentation would have demanded objection.  Heated meeting? Hardly. It was a very civil affair. Shame on you.

• hasacluemaine

  I tried to edit my first comment ten times for a typo, but could not gain access. Pasted below is my comment.

  Abigail, I was there and your reporting is some of the most biased I have ever witnessed. A dozen residents testified about the impact of noise and the potential  reduced property values that would come from this project. Your pro wind bias is not the mark of a true  journalist. You focused on the only two emotional and sensational aspects of the testimony provided. I did notice you absent yourself to interview someone when longs standing Town Meeting Moderator and Planning Board member suggested that people really need to look at this issue.  In court, your witten presentation would have demanded objection.  Heated meeting? Hardly. It was a very civil affair. Shame on you.

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DK2NSO2GYJSIRQOPYAXLKVEIA4 James

  I have been the object of biased reporting in years gone by.It is no fun being misquoted and stereotyped, but, it sells papers. Meanwhile, the people of Frankfort have every right to reject wind power due to the noise and lack of access to the land on which the towers will be built. Angus King and other investers would love to take some prized real estate from you to line their deep pockets. Saying “no” is sometimes the right thing to do even if Gov. Lepage and his business friends don’t like it.

• Anonymous

  Don’t waste you’re time fighting this… They win you lose..  The past will tell you this…. Enviro freaks wanted wind power, look at renewable advocates on front page…  You can’t be them.. It will only stop when the subsidies stop…  Personaly I don’t believe in wind power because of the FACTS they do not produce enough to pay for themselves EVER… It is a lie all the way around…. You might be able to fight it with the stats of the truth from other windmills.. They don’t work period…

• Anonymous

  Its obvious these people don’t need or use any electrical power. Why do so called environmentalist hate wind power, hydro power, and natural gas?

• Anonymous

  I wounder how many people  have actually heard a wind tower. Or just jumping on the band wagon. Well pay for high priced oil and electricity . And sit freezing listening to the cold wind howl, which is louder than those wind towers . What fools these mortals be. 

• Anonymous

  I was in attendance and I have to wonder if Abigail was at the same one… Heated?  Hardly. Tempers flared?  You sure you weren’t at an OWS protest?  Everyone was polite and accomodating to every speaker.  After each person spoke, the audience clapped in appreciation for the speaker taking their time and effort to give each homeowner information that they may not have gotten from Eolian.  The audience even clapped after Rob Manner and Travis Bullard spoke, because you still must be decent to your neighbors, even if they are not decent to you.  This was such a quiet meeting, I was hoping the deputy wouldn’t fall asleep due to boredom.

  As my neighbor “hasacluemaine” has said above, a dozen homeowners spoke about the detrimental effects the turbines would have on their health (mental and physical) and their property values.  Actually it was much more than a dozen, but I digress.  I do question the decible levels that the wind turbine project supporters had spoken about.  Sure, 65 decibles was probably the level of Rob’s voice when he stepped away from the microphone—however, he was “using his outside voice” (as my Mom used to say) and speaking to a large crowd in an equally large auditorium.  Perhaps Rob doesn’t realize that the average person can’t sleep when he’s “using his outside voice” in the school auditorium.  Besides, Rob lives on the other side of town and wouldn’t be directly impacted by the detrimental effects of the turbines.

  from the article:   The project would generate property taxes of $200,000 annually for the town, company officials have said.
    I have an extremely hard time believing this, Travis.  First of all, the land will still belong to Greg Allen, and I seriously doubt that the savvy businessman that he is, would agree to pay THAT much on his property.  Geez, the communication towers there now don’t generate anywhere near one-tenth that amount in property taxes!  CMP transmission lines and the gas pipeline that runs alongside it don’t generate that much in property taxes.

  Greg Allen of Trenton, one of the land owners who would like to lease Mount Waldo property to Eolian,….said ““Reasonable people can differ [in their opinions],” he said. “But this ordinance will kill the wind project in Frankfort.”….
    Greg, maybe it will, and you won’t get a windfall (no pun intended) from selling the use of your land…but you’ll still have your blueberry corporation.

• Anonymous

  A mother sits by her tormented child’s bedside for several hours in the middle of the night as the roar and beat of two nearby wind turbines permeate the walls of their home. A middle aged man feels worsening chest pains from the strain brought about by a string of nights where restful sleep has been severely compromised. A high school sophomore finds her grades slipping because her nervous system is frayed from the frequent sleeplessness that has now become a part of her life. A family that needs to sell their house comes to the sickening realization that nobody will be purchasing their home, even with substantial price cuts, now that its once peaceful and natural setting effectively sits in the midst of what has become a factory.We asked a prominent member of a powerful Maine environmental group what she thought of the anguish that their wind turbine advocacy has helped bring about and she simply shrugged, saying “it’s for the greater good”. We’ve even heard that some have a name for those of us who suffer — “policy roadkill”.

  http://www.windtaskforce.org/page/anguish

• Patten_Pete

  Frankfort –  send these Eolian prep school trustafarian rent seekers back home to cry to mummy and daddy.

• Anonymous

  Thanks,  I’m glad somebody can see through the crap the wind advocates are spewing.  The biggest problem with the wind mills is, there is no storage for the electricity.  When the wind isn’t blowing the only electricity available will be from the same fossil fueled powered generating plants we already currently have.  This means we can put up a million windmills in Maine, but we still can’t take any of the old plants offline.  Also, the rates will go up because the older generating plants cannot close down just because we are receiving power from the wind mills when they are actively producing.  These wind mills are all produced with government funding because  private investers know that only a fool would throw their money into this.
  With all the information now available it is amazing that so many people are gullible to think this is a path to green, cheap energy. 

• Anonymous

  Let’s see…..it’s 2015 and look, there’s huge wind turbines on Mt. WALDO, further east there’s more of ‘em; to the north are two Mt Trashmores; further Downeast are the Wyman “blue” berry streams with god knows what in em’;  looking south toward Searsport there’s a 15 story propane tank…..and my stupid CMP smart meter keeps saying, “Rate increase”.      Maine’s going tohell real fast at the expense of us little people…….greed trumps us and our families sleeping pills…oh, Mr Allen, why don’t you take down your eyesore windturbine that’s been busticated for years (or was it reclassified as alighting rod)?  By 2020 Maine will have to be renamed,  it’ll be cheap and easy…..just put a question mark after Vacationland on the Maine licence plates.

• Anonymous

  This is hardly the first time cynical profit-driven developers have looked at Frankfort as the sort of place where they could hoodwink the locals, considering them too ignorant to look after their property values and way of life. Perhaps some may remember how Frankforters came to their senses and rejected an attempt to locate a nuclear waste dump in this town. It looks like the Angus Kings of this world have once again misjudged (most of) the good folks of Frankfort. 

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NXPTPFL746OV2VGR5WBOEUF6W4 Roger

  Why is it that windmills only seem to be built in places where folks do not support them?  Why not put them near the homes of the supporters.

• AionNV

  It’s private land, too bad.

  The fact that the company is doing everything they aren’t even required to do, just shows what a bunch of loons there are up there. If the land is so precious to you, buy it. Otherwise, too freakin’ bad, it’s not YOUR land.

• AionNV

  Fictions.

• AionNV

  Gullible much ?

• Anonymous

  Great points, but I have to disagree about Goliath always winning, DvsG.  With enough effort, sometimes David DOES win.  Check out this link; two of my friends were instrumental in the fight.  It can indeed be done; don’t EVER give up!    http://bangordailynews.com/2011/10/20/news/penobscot/lurc-members-favor-rejection-of-wind-farm/

• http://twitter.com/rklindell R. Kenneth Lindell

  Wind energy is a scam. It would not exist without massive subsidies, much of them from the Obama stimulus package.  That money will dry up as quickly as snowfall in June.  Eolian will grab their Obama dollars – freshly borrowed from China – and leave town with rusting eyesores on the mountain and a mention in the Town Report each year of unpaid taxes.
   
  If local contractors think they are getting work from this, they are likely to be disappointed.  The federal dollars that subsidizes such projects often call for Union labor to be used.  You should ask a few questions about this of Eolian.  If you don’t have your union card you are very likely to be left out in the cold.
   
  Frankfort residents are being scammed with all kinds of promises.  They should remain skeptical and do their homework.  Those who do so will find that wind energy is nothing but a pipe dream and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

• Anonymous

  Too bad Danforth didn’t have town officials that cared about their taxpayers welfare, instead of $$$$

• http://twitter.com/windaction WindAction

  Eolian has shown its true colors, and inexperience in Antrim NH. Of all the developers I’ve encountered, they are the least professional and quite ignorant of process. And, since they’ve never built a commerical wind energy facility in the US, there is no reason to believe they have the technical, financial, or managerial ability to erect and manage a project. Just a couple of guys trying to jump on the green money bandwagon.

• Anonymous

  GE is “homeless”.

• Anonymous

  Correction….I was wrong….the experimental wind turbine in Orland (purchased with some federal tax dollars) has been out of service since 2007; sold to a Canada company who has yet to come get it?…………..I guess nobody wants old wind turbines……………………..from Endless Energy website:
  Endless Energy, a pioneer in the field, gained its initial experience in
  commercial wind power generation through a turbine installed at Allen’s
  blueberry processing facility in Orland, Maine, from 2000 to 2007. It was
  experimental, with the intent of learning more about the economics of coastal
  wind power at business sites. The 50kW machine was partially funded by a
  development grant provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. It was sold in the
  spring of 2007 to Entegrity Windsystems of Canada which has not yet removed the
  machine.

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

  Frankfort, take control, pass the ordinance.  DEP will rubber stamp any WIND project.  DEP ignores “adverse” scenic impact from red, flashing aviation lights.  If you see satrs now, take a picture for future reference to your night sky.

• Anonymous

  and here’s something I never thought of………..hope someone checks this out with FAA and USAF as Bangor airport is pretty close………………………….from article in UK on line paper:   MoD had “lodged last-minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms in
  the line of sight of its stations on the east coast” and that “the same
  objections are likely to apply to wind turbines in the North Sea………………..  British Times article reported: “MoD tests conducted in
  2004 and 2005 showed that wind turbines create a ‘hole’ in radar coverage [which
  prevents aircraft from being seen].”

• Vinalhavener

  This description describes what many of the  neighbors of the wind turbines in Vinalhaven are experiencing.  Other island residents do not want to hear it or believe it, and some turbine neighbors will claim for personal reasons, such as trying to sell a home or trying to keep a job, that the noise is not all that bad.  However,  people who live within a mile of the turbines know life is not what it used to be.  The noise is intolerable and the controversy has negatively impacted the entire community.   As a member of the “road kill” I can promise you that Frankfurt had better think twice before agreeing to sacrifice the lives of those who live within a mile of the turbines in order to make some extra $$$.  Frankfurt wind project neighbors will have no choice but to fight or watch their life savings, health, and peace of mind go up in smoke.  It is WRONG  for the Maine DEP to put Maine residents in such a  position!  Maine state regulations need to change NOW, retroactively, before any more damage has been done to neighbors of wind farms and communities who find themselves embroiled in a controversy that would not exist if state legislators and the DEP did their JOB.  There is no excuse for it!   How many more families will the DEP throw under the bus entitled “wind energy?”

• Anonymous

  The landowner will make how much a year? In a recent conversation with someone with a phone tower on his land makes more in one year then I can working 2 jobs in 5 years. But it appears, to quote Eolain, several hundred thousand  annually will go to the town, meaning not the people. It looks to me like the people will be paying this fee to the town.
  I agree that we need to wean ourselves away from oil but when people need to drug themselves and their children to sleep there’s nothing to gain except health problems and medical expenses that people cannot afford. It has been proven time and again living with loud noise has negative health effects.
  Why is the U.S. jumps off every damnable bridge that Europe does? It looks like they are not the example to follow.

• melibusa

  It also appears environmentalists don’t like hydro power either.  In Maine what is more renewable and green, than hydro power. Water has run down hill for eons and probably always will, and yet some insist on removing this source for clean energy in favor of a few species that have been gone for many years.

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BWMI3IUA4LFCAW3BEDQ5GCDMBM Tyler Inman

  Sorry to tell you but Rob’s outside voice is his inside voice to. Yes the school auditorium may have made his voice louder, but his voice is one that will always stand out.

• Anonymous

  I’m afraid the article was in error on this point, although the mistake was understandable.

  I am not an owner of the leased land nor do I have any financial ties to the owners of the leased land (2 of the owners are half great uncles who I haven’t seen or spoken to in years).

  My only financial tie to the project is owning part of the easement to the site that crosses my adjacent property.

  No windfall here, unfortunately. Sorry, I’m not pigeonholed that easily.

  -Greg Allen

• Anonymous

  I suggest that people call anyone they know in Vinalhaven to get the real story.  I am told by several reputable people that more than 90% of people on the island support the project and that the cooperative that put it together has gone above and beyond in their efforts to resolve the concerns of the very few.  Unfortunately, some people decide to focus on problems to the exclusion of all the positives in their lives or in any situation. 

• Anonymous

  This is beyond the pale. 

  Decommissioning funds are a standard part of any wind project permitted in Maine and are included in this one as well.  No rusting eyesores, just turning blades creating clean energy.

  People are waking up to the misinformation about subsidies.  The oil and gas industry continues to get subsidies far in excess of renewable energy, despite their record of environmental harm and gigantic profits.  “Government support for renewable energy is 75X LOWER than for fossil fuels” http://windforme.org/economy.htm

  Local contractors will be part of the team of Maine construction workers who will build this project, just like every other project, which have together averaged 250 jobs per year and involvement by more than 300 Maine companies.

  The real “scam” is that people like this are not held accountable for the disinformation they spread.
   

• Vinalhavener

  Of course the people who are satisfied with the project do not live next door to it!  Wake up and smell the coffee!  If one lives in town it is easy to get on the wind energy band wagon.  Who are the reputable people here?  The ones that are willing  to sacrifice the lives a “a very few”  for what THEY consider the common good?  Actually, electrical rates have gone UP on Vinalhaven, and even for those people who are willing to sell the neighbors of the turbines down the river for their own financial gain, the project is NOT  a success.  The electrical utility has used every opportunity imaginable to blame the failures of the wind project on the neighbors.  They have refused to speak to or work with them for almost a year and a half.   My guess is that if you had the equivalent of a MAC truck running in your driveway 24/7 you might “focus” on that “negative”  as well.

• Anonymous

  you mean you are not a grantee of the George Allen Land Trust?

• Anonymous

  So if your next door neighbor out there in Nevada wanted to turn his private property into a nuclear waste storage facility we can laugh at you and call you a loon if you may be just a bit concerned….yeah…it’s too freakin’ bad, it’s not YOUR land.

• Anonymous

  your comment, AionNV, is a useless waste of bandwidth

• Anonymous

  Local contractors will be part of the team of Maine construction workers who will build this project, just like every other project, which have together averaged 250 jobs per year and involvement by more than 300 Maine companies.
  ******************************************************
  …just like when the gas pipeline went in 10 years ago, right?  …yeah…all the contractors were from Texas…
  how long do you think these “construction jobs” will last?  a couple weeks…
  “together they have averaged 250 jobs/year”….yep, each wind turbine project has employed a dozen Mainers, including the people who work FOR the development companies like Eolian. So, a dozen or so jobs multiplied by a dozen wind turbine projects and voila, “250 jobs!” Hmmm, I wonder if they will count the public relations firm Eolian hired to scam…I  mean…”educate” Frankforters…maybe the ‘job count’ includes the grocer or farmer they bought the pig from for their bribe…oops, I mean “free pig roast” barbeque.  Don’t forget the coffee producer in that job count—you know…the grocery store you get your coffee from which you pass out to Frankforters you invite in for a ‘chat’.  Oh, and the printer who made up your pretty, glossy brochures touting your “Maine company”…based in New Hampshire, but with a mail drop box in Maine…

• Anonymous

  They are losing, that’s why Bullard has resorted to trying to start unfounded rumors to further devide the townspeople.

• Anonymous

  Eolian is “estimating” that the town will get as much as $200,000.00 per year in property taxes because of the “improvements” on the land.  I really find this hard to believe.  The property taxes assessed on Central Maine Power land and the adjacent gas pipeline land are nowhere near $200,000.00 and it is a similar “improvement”.
  If our town ever got this much in property taxes, it certainly won’t go towards our annual budget in order to lower our mill rate.  The town will find plenty of things to do with this “windfall”, everyone and their brother will show up at town meeting with their hand out looking for us to fund their pet projects while us taxpayers pay high mill rates.

• Anonymous

  Perhaps it would make more sense for Eolian to put together a project that would satisfy the townspeople instead of thinking that an ordinance should be written to meet the needs of the project.

• Anonymous

   You are so right on the money, sorry about the pun. My heart and common sense tell me, this is not going to be what it’s bragged up to be not even close. 
   If the government is for something that should be the only red flagg one should need to figure out it can’t be good.

• Anonymous

  That does make sense, Bob, but that would mean they have to ask permission, so to speak, to set up shop, and I don’t think they are really interested in our concerns.  A savvy businessman investing his own money would approach the people in the area he wishes to locate…but Eolian isn’t investing it’s own money—as it is now, they have nothing to lose.  Their capital comes from our pockets, not theirs.

• Anonymous

  There is a huge difference between a nuclear waste dump and a few wind turbines.

• Anonymous

  both devalue adjacent properties, both cause harm to the well-being of adjacent homeowners and tenants.  If you don’t like my choice, simply use such operations as: human waste treatment facilities, chemical manufacturing plant, quarry…shall I go on?  (oh, and it’s not “a few wind turbines” it is 6…btw, are you an ajacent landowner to the proposed project in Frankfort?)

• Anonymous

  You reveal your bias. If you look at a map you’ll notice that Frankfort is between Bangor and Belfast – hardly an undeveloped part of the state. In fact, if memory serves, aren’t there radio towers on that mountain already? Is ther no place a wind turbine creating clean power is appropriate in your mind?

• Anonymous

  How do you know they aren’t willing to “put together a project that would satisfy the townspeople?”

  Wind power projects receive subsidies just like every other energy source in the world. The benefit of having an energy source in your town is that the subsidies encourage much larger private investment…and you can tax all that value for years. Nice to have your tax dollars come back in such a direct way.

  “Every federal dollar spent on a wind power project costs each of Maine’s federal taxpayers 0.000158 of a cent, and leverages two dollars in private investment.”

  http://windforme.org/economy.htm

• Anonymous

  Hyperbole and misinformation. Prove that elevtricity rates have gone up on the island and that the cooperative has refused to speak to neighbors with concerns.

  55 decibels, if that is even what it is outside people’s homes, is hardly a Mack truck.
  http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/boh/wind-turbines-neuro-acoustical.shtml

• Anonymous

  How about the people tha live adjacent to the power plant that makes your electricity? Or all of us in Maine who live downwind from all the coal burnimg plants in the midwest and have restrictions on the fish we can eat because of the mercury in our rain.

• Anonymous

  A short trip to Freedom would change your mind. Stand 2500 ft from one, and they’re small ones, and then think about buying a house there.

• Vinalhavener

  Balance and Reason, your ignorance concerning turbine noise and the situation on Vinalhaven  suggests it best if you make those phone calls yourself.  Call the Fox Island Electric Coop and speak with them.   They will confirm my assertion that George Baker, CEO of FIW, has refused to speak with the neighbors for over a year and half.   As for the electric rates, just the ENERGY  portion of  the island recent electric bill is well over 13 cents per KWH which is higher than the energy portion of the electric bill in August of 2009 before the turbines came on line. In August 2009 the ENERGY portion of the bill was 8.5 cents per KWH.  While you’re on the phone with the electric Coop, you can ask them to confirm that, too.

• Anonymous

  Actually, I’m not a grantee but the trust does own the other section of the easement and I do have financial and personal ties to the grantees.

  In any case, neither I nor the trust nor any other holdings of Allen’s in Ellsworth has any financial stake in the project beyond those easements and the effect on the value of our adjacent land.

  My real interest in this project mainly to see if I was correct that the wind on the mountain is a good resource (turns out it is an excellent wind resource) and if it’s an appropriate site for such a project (something that’s considerably less obvious then I had thought). I’m also interested in regulations being appropriate and rational because that’s just the way I am and it seemed to be an excellent way to learn more about how state and local interests work themselves out, and it has been.

  My current belief (and I’ll have to make sure I’ve seen the most current version) is the ordinance is too flawed to merit approval.  For example, the way offsets are calculated from property line to property line is nonsensical unless your purpose is to simply kill the project and if that’s the case it shouldn’t take 40+ pages to do so. I’d prefer it be modified further before the vote but I’m not sure that will happen.

  On the other hand, I’ve come to believe the State limit of 45 db is too high (just as 32 db is too low) and that it’s critical there be a sound compliance protocol with real teeth and that’s one reason I’ve never objected to requiring 100% decommissioning funding up front.

  It’s perfectly reasonable for Eolian to be interested in the site and for them and the landowners to want to make money on the project.  It’s a working mountain, not a park.  It’s also perfectly reasonable for people living close to the project to be concerned about the impact it will have on them. It’s reasonable for the town to want the extra income if for nothing else then to help reduce the level of subsidy the town gets from the state and county for it’s school but it also it’s duty to look out for it’s residents.  Some on both sides will disagree with me but getting it right in this case is hard but throwing up it’s hands either way isn’t right either.