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CONTRIBUTORS

Bowers wind project mix of bad motives

By Paul Rudershausen, Special to the BDN
Posted Nov. 18, 2011, at 4:08 p.m.
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The Maine Land Use Regulation Commission, in assessing the proposed Bowers Mountain Wind Project put forth by First Wind, recently arrived at the sensible conclusion to deny the application. At question was whether proposed 400-foot ridgetop wind towers with 60-foot rotating blades and 24/7 red strobe lights could have been seen from some of Maine’s most majestic lakes.

Surprisingly, the undeniable impact on the view was once in question by a state that has long since banned 40-foot-high freeway billboards but endured First Wind falsehoods that towers 10 times higher would have no impact. Neil Kiely, First Wind representative, told a Maine news station with a straight face that “Most folks find that [wind turbines] are either attractive or fade into the distance.”

President Obama has greased the skids for green power, funneling no-interest loans and stimulus funds to green energy companies such as Solyndra while instituting a hidden tax on utility consumers by requiring that their power usage increasingly come from green sources.

This energy is green in name only — energy derived from wind is far more inefficient and costly than First Wind and friends would have you believe. But energy and global warming have morphed into election issues.

Despite approval ratings at an abysmal 36 percent, the president still recycles the same energy rhetoric to galvanize his political base.

Obama recently spoke about the evils of traditional energy sources at the institution where I work, energizing the same volatile and naive university students who have become core support for his reelection bid.

In an Oct. 14 BDN OpEd, Tim Gardner and Jay Haynes wrote, “Wind power helps save Down East way of life.” This is not true. We have exported employment in the paper, furniture and textile industries once operating in central and northern Maine because of the heavy hand of Obama-style liberal politics that puts a premium on corporate regulation and stifling taxes on blue-collar companies. This leads to job export to developing countries.

The First Wind development that the Gardner-Haynes OpEd supports, which is funded by lavish grants and stimulus funds courtesy of the Obama administration, creates a miniscule number of permanent jobs while extending our tax burden and national debt.

Gardner and Haynes state that in supporting industrial wind power, Mainers “would like to have an additional revenue stream to offset the cost of taxes on their lands.” Gardner’s and Haynes’ companies already have this revenue stream; it’s the Maine Tree Growth Tax Law and it requires landowners receiving this break to permit the public on their land in exchange for reduced property taxes.

Why does Lakeville Shores want the Bowers wind project to be approved? Because it owns the same mountainsides that First Wind wants to develop. For Lakeville Shores, that’s a double dip. They remove 100-year-old trees off scenic Maine ridgetops and then lease their land to First Wind at rates subsidized by Obama stimulus funds.

Conservation groups such as Maine Audubon stand next to clear-cutters such as Lakeville Shores and extol the virtues of mountaintop wind development because they both get financial incentives from First Wind.

The most glaring and blatant omission from the Gardner-Haynes OpEd is the fact that public comments to LURC were overwhelmingly against the proposed Bowers project. This opposition speaks to the soul of Maine because only the opponents are trying to preserve a priceless view.

This overwhelming opposition to the Bowers project served notice to LURC that the vast majority of interested parties do not want to sacrifice first-class views for a disastrously so-called green development project that would have used your tax dollars and required thousands of tons of explosives, fossil fuels and mountaintop blasting to complete.

Paul Rudershausen is a fishery biologist who lives in North Carolina. He owns a woodlot in Carroll Plantation that overlooks the Down East Chain of Lakes.

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  • Patten_Pete

    Does First Wind’s attempt at withdrawing their application cause taxpayers to pay more money? Or does the organization we fund, LURC, have to turn its back on other work that needs to be done because an essentially beaten corporation thinks it is entitled to a rematch?

    In a world where precedents become established through much hard work, but that work gets amortized as those precedents then guide future decision making, isn’t it a misuse of public energies to try and avoid a decision after so much publicly funded effort has been expended?

  • G. Alan Woods

    Like a spoiled child, First Wind doesn’t like the results so they’re screaming “unfair!” and demanding a “do-over!”

    Let’s hope LURC Commissioners will consider all the stakeholders in this matter and will stand firm against this bully!

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

    it’s the Maine Tree Growth Tax Law and it requires landowners receiving this break to permit the public on their land in exchange for reduced property taxes.
    What is the “open” lands law?  Are these companies going to clear cut and then get a tax break for it?

  • Penny Gray

    It’s interesting to note that environmental groups are beginning to cool their jets where industrial wind is concerned.  They are waking up to the fact that there is a huge difference between residential scale wind and these idustrial turbines.  There’s nothing “green” about industrial wind, and the process by which it is being shoved down Mainers’ throats is downright unconstitutional.  Wind developers have not been required to provide any proof whatsoever that their projects will lower electric rates, wean us off of foreign heating oil and gasoline, or lower CO2 in the environment.  They haven’t had to prove that their projects will shut down any existing power plants.  They haven’t had to prove that their turbines even generate any electricity at all.Why??????

  • Anonymous

     Would citizens ever get a second shot  at opposing any of these projects, as First Wind is trying to accomplish in their denial?

    These scoundrels must be stopped, and if need be , LURC   must go to the courts if they allow this nonsense legal manipulation to come to fruition.

    This is horrendous!!

    If LURC permits this travesty of Maine law, it should be dissolved immediately and serious questions must asked  as far as bribery or inside dealings in this department, in collusion with  wind liars in Maine.

    If this scoundrel company is given another chance, THIS STATE HAS BEEN BOUGHT by First Wind and the other scoundrels of this subsidy scam called WIND.

    What is there in the Two letter Word “NO” First Wind and LURC do not understand?

    Perhaps only Supreme Court action or the governors intervention will be needed to stop this illegality of process .

    It must stop NOW!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alec-Sevins/100001026837377 Alec Sevins

    I hate to say it, but I’m almost rooting for global warming deniers if they can block some of these eyesores. I think the deniers are idiots for pitting two unrelated issues against each other (just to get at Obama or “liberalism”) but any help is welcome in stopping this madness.

    It started before Obama’s tenure, anyhow. Europe has turbines up to the gills. In my view, turbine-pushers are a lot like natural gas fracking crews. I wouldn’t call them liberal and they have few of the aesthetic values often associated with liberalism.

    Putting millions of solar panels on existing rooftops makes a lot more sense than putting unnatural skyscrapers all over wildlands. If a structure already exists, you aren’t adding to the viewshed burden. Why can’t the government finance solar panels, then mandate billing consumers at lower rates for their onsite electricity?

  • Anonymous

    One would think the Haynes and Gardner families would be more protective of their fellow Mainers and would deny such development which devastates the scenic attributes people purchased their properties for. In many cases the land was bought from the Haynes or Gardners!! Go figure. Oh but they let people use their roads!! True, but the people pay with higher taxes which make up for the tree growth freebies given to the big landowners. Is FoulWind waiting for new faces on the LURC staff? I think Toby Hammond is a wind ringer. He gave it away when he said people would get used to the windsprawl and not even notice. That is never going to be true. Can one get used to vertigo? Can bats get used to barotauma? Toby needs to get up to speed because he is 3 years behind the times. People do not get used to jake brakes, jet noise or train horns either. Bowers should be denied and not allowed to reapply. Ever.

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