COLUMBIA FALLS, Maine — The Passamaquoddy Tribe of Indian Township and Pleasant Point has partnered with a Midwest energy firm to launch a $120 million wind farm in Washington County. The developers estimate the project will create 50-100 jobs during the construction phase and 15-20 permanent positions once the farm is built, with more jobs anticipated from spinoff development in the future.
The farm would be located in Unorganized Territory at a decommissioned U.S. Air Force radar site nearly ten miles north of Columbia Falls amid a web of dirt roads, blueberry barrens and cranberry bogs.
The tribe already owns 1,060 acres of blueberry barrens adjacent to the 1,000 acres that the U.S. General Services Administration is offering for sale. Per U.S. law, the tribe will get partial preference on the acquisition, John Richardson, founder of Native Power LLC, said this week.
“This project could be transformative for Washington County,” said Richardson, who has been hired to advise the Passamaquoddies on the project. “It will allow the tribe to diversify its economy and allow it to look even further, at other energies such as biomass.”
Sale of the land to the tribe would avoid a property auction, similar to one held to dispose of obsolete federal over-the-horizon backscatter radar property in Moscow, Maine, last December. After a two-month online auction, a Portland-based company, Western Maine Realty, purchased 1,500 acres and several large buildings with a high bid of $730,000, according to the U.S. General Services Administration. To date, company representatives have not revealed their plans for the Moscow property.
The Passamaquoddy Tribe has entered into a development agreement with Exergy Development Group headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Together, the tribe and company have formed Peskotmuhkati Wind LLC. Peskotmuhkati is the native word for Passamaquoddy.
Richardson — former commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development and former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives — said the tribe is currently conducting an appraisal of the property to determine how much to offer for it. But he added that the group expects to complete the purchase and finalize plans for the wind farm by the end of this year.
He confirmed Thursday that the tribe is currently pursuing additional financial partners, but that “Exergy has sufficient access to capital to make this project a success.”
Richardson said the tribe plans on erecting between 18 and 50 turbines depending on the results of an ongoing environmental study. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force both conducted their own environmental studies when the property was decommissioned, and Richardson said there were no “fatal flaws” indicated.
He said Peskotmuhkati Wind LLC hoped to generate between 36 and 72 megawatts of electricity. According to the American Wind Energy Association, one megawatt of wind-generated electricity can power 240-300 households per year.
Richardson said the site currently has some underground transmission lines — at least six miles worth — and that a study is under way to determine if those lines have the capacity to serve the wind farm or if new lines would need to be installed.
The biggest complaints from residents near other wind farm sites have been focused on noise and obstruction of views, issues that Richardson said are not present at the remote barren location the Passamaquoddies are considering.
The radar site is 2.2 miles from the nearest full-time resident, Richardson said, and the turbines will not be visible from that home. “The project’s remoteness is definitely an asset,” he said.
Richardson added that because the land already owned by the tribe, as well as the land planned to be purchased, are considered federal trust lands, all regulations for the proposed wind farm will come from federal, not state, agencies.
He said plans are to build and begin operating the wind farm in 2013.
Richardson said that seeing the project succeed was very important to him because of the struggling economy in Washington County. “What is most significant is that because the wind project will be owned by the tribe, the majority of revenues created by the wind farm and other businesses will remain in Washington County,” he said. “This could be a game changer for the county.”
Chief Clayton Cleaves of the Pleasant Point reservation said the tribe will retain 51 percent ownership of the project and will funnel those profits into additional projects in Washington County. “This can be a key economic driver for the Passamaquoddy Tribe,” he said.
“We became interested in this project because it is a first-of-its-kind development of a commercial-scale wind power project that is uniquely owned with Native Americans,” James Carkulis, president and CEO of Exergy said Tuesday. “We have also been highly encouraged by the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Indian Affairs analyses that we are a national model of how to navigate development and financing of renewable energy projects on tribal lands.”
“Both construction and long-term operations and maintenance jobs will be created, and training will be available for both tribal members and others in Washington County,” Passamaquoddy Chief Joseph Socobasin of the Indian Township reservation said this week. Fifty to 100 construction jobs are expected to be created, with 15-20 permanent jobs to be filled once the farm is built.
Richardson said that the ripple effect caused by the energy farm could result in another 50-100 permanent jobs. “There are several opportunities for tribal enterprises that will arise from the completion of this wind project, including energy-dependent developments that could be co-located with the wind farm, such as a data center that could take advantage of the existing buildings on the radar site,” Richardson said.
An international charity, Trans Atlantic Orthopedic Foundation Corporation, which is based in New York City, has applied to the GSA for a 50-acre parcel on the same property to create a homeless shelter. Richardson said this application to Housing and Urban Development is routine and that homeless shelters trump tribal requests in the bidding process. But he added that if Trans Atlantic is awarded the acreage, which would be provided free by the federal government, it would not be a deal breaker for the tribe’s wind farm plans.
“This is an extremely remote area,” Richardson said. “Fifty acres seems like a lot of space, but our project could accommodate that and it would not interfere with our plans.”
Telephone calls and an email request for information were not returned by Trans Atlantic Orthopedic Foundation Corporation on Thursday. According to the company’s website, it provides “humanitarian assistance for individuals addressing musculoskeletal conditions around the world” and “resources to persons needing mobility devices, wound care, and repair of injuries from violence and accident-induced trauma.” Nowhere on the charity’s website does it indicate that it currently operates any homeless shelters anywhere in the U.S.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ office staff confirmed Thursday that they are looking into the request by Trans Atlantic since the location is miles from the nearest paved road and far from other services.
“Our office has some grave concerns about this,” Collins’ spokesman Carol Woodcock said Thursday, indicating that the proposal does not pass the straight-face test for a shelter location.
Woodcock said the process under which Trans Atlantic filed its proposal is the federal Title 5 McKinney Act, which is vague and doesn’t seem to address concerns that the land could be accepted free of charge and then sold.
Richardson said, however, that the tribe is not concerned about Trans Atlantic’s plans affecting the wind farm project, even though the homeless shelter location seems suspect.
“You’d have to parachute every homeless person in New England into those barrens to make the project viable,” he said. Richardson said that as the process unfolds, Trans Atlantic will have to prove financial viability and there is a finite time limit during which their project must be established or the company could lose the land.
“Clearly Washington County’s homeless issues need to be addressed but I think some sort of assessment of need should be accomplished first,” he said.
Richardson said the Passamaquoddy partnership with Exergy was vital to the wind farm project. Not only is the company an experienced renewable energy developer, he said, but it has a social and environmental ethic that the Passamaquoddy Tribe found compatible. “Exergy Development Group is a multifaceted renewable energy company entrenched in wind, solar, bio-energy, geothermal and hydro,” he said. “Their work is focused on increasing efficiencies in the renewable energy industry. They build projects that are socially beneficial, environmentally responsible and enhance economic viability in communities.”
“An additional benefit to the community shall be derived from the refurbishment and reuse of the radar site that has been vacant for ten years,” he said.
good for them!
Is anyone going to check if the thing is financially feasible without subsidies, tax breaks and inflated costs to the utilities forced to buy the power? Wind farms are a green fiction. If you run the plain, unbiased numbers, it doesn’t work.
Well if you “run the numbers” on a lot of energy systems, they really don’t work. If you factor in environmental degradation, and pollution costs, coal, oil, and NG don’t really work, but we are happy to subsidize those industries.
I’m not saying that wind is the only answer, but what are our alternatives?
Drill baby drill! What other alternatives do we need?
Did you know that refined petroleum was this country ‘ s largest export last year ? That is right we exported more refined petroleum than automobiles, food products or anything else. The refiners had more product than they could sell in this country and made more by exporting it out of the country. So the value of drill baby drill ? Good for the bottom line of Exxon Mobile and the rest but does little for John Q Public.
I’m not putting in a plug for Exxon Mobile, by any means, but they employ over 80,000 people, not including all those in the downstream businesses that rely on them. And, they’re in the business of providing the materials for a lot of things most Americans – maybe even you – use in everyday life – fuels, plastics, road materials, etc.
There’s a lot of John Q Publics out there driving to WalMart in cars built with plastics made from oil, on a road surfaced with petroleum byproducts, burning fuel made from oil, and buying a lot of WalMart junk made of plastics made from – well, you know.
I like to bad mouth their business practices as much as the next person, but to suggest that they are doing little for John Q Public is stretching it a little isn’t it?
Wonder how ExxonMobil is going to like it when Obama cuts back their subsidies and tax breaks? Think they will take in on the chin and let some of their continually record breaking profits slide a bit, or you think they will take it out on some of those 80,000 employees?
The cutbacks and subsidies and tax breaks will never be removed. That is why “Big Oil” greases (no pun intended) the palms of both Republicans and Democrats equally. No politician in their right mind (again no pun intended) will ever make life difficult or make cutbacks to “Big Oil”.
lol you should have “intended” the puns, they were good ones! :)
No they will take it out on you , the consumer. Look for higher gas and heating oil prices.
Don’t know how they’d handle it. Unfortunately, they probably don’t have much to worry about. I don’t think there’s enough legislators out there with the courage to pull the bone out of that dog’s mouth.
US imports 9 million barrels a day of crude oil. It exports 35,000 barrels of crude. It exports 3.2 million barrels of refined petroleum per day while it imports 2.2 million barrels. Without importing the 9 million barrels a day we have no refining exports. While the refining industry employs tens of thousands of people, it is one of the dirtiest most unhealthy industries in the country
solar, wind, tides, conservation….
Do we get to go to war, invade Columbia Falls, kill a bunch of civilians, destroy their community, then spend 100 billion a year rebuilding it? The 20 to 50 billion that the gulf oil spill cost could have built 160 to 400 of these wind farms, and you could use pepper to make blackened shrimp instead of crude. Drill baby drill means oil companies soaking the American taxpayers for 10 billion a year in subsidies, enough to build 80 of these wind farms a year, and not one soldier gets killed.
Well, considering our alternatives would be a good place to start. We haven’t actually done that yet. Maine didn’t jump on the wind bandwagon as the result of a long, thoughtful look at all of our alternative energy sources. In fact, Governor Baldacci stated in 2007 that, from an energy standpoint, all these wind turbines have little to do with Maine. I pasted an excerpt from a 2007 Bangor Daily News piece below.
“Maine is prepared to host thousands of megawatts of generation capacity from wind and biomass” to serve southern New England’s “insatiable appetite for energy.” Gov. John Baldacci, BDN, July 12, 2007.
I’m not sure why he threw the biomass in there, Maine is really focused only on wind development.
Thank you Angus King…
Take away all subsidies, tax breaks, mandates, and other scams across the board for every form of energy and you will see energy dense sources do very well and continue to power our economy and our lifestyle. There would be no corn ethanol, wind turbines, and solar arrays, which is fine with me as a taxpayer.
Nuke power and dump the waste in a subduction zone where it will move slowly under a tectonic plate until it becomes neutral. It will move 1.5 to 2 miles in 200,000 years. Why does Maine have to make renewable power so the nasty coal fired power plants in the midwest can keep polluting?
Flying in Michigan recently, I saw wind farms everywhere. Flying into California, wind farms everywhere.
….and all were heavily subsidized by your Federal tax dollars – hope you enjoyed the view! :)
You sound like a big wind.
Thanks so much for your insightful, intelligent comment. Now go back to your coloring book.
I’m to busy to color these days, I’m way to busy scamming the public with big OIL subsidy and getting rich.
so are the roads you drive on. the oil in your furnace…all subsidized one way or the other
Take away all subsidies, tax breaks, mandates, and other scams across the board for every form of energy and you will see energy dense sources do very well and continue to power our economy and our lifestyle. There would be no corn ethanol, wind turbines, and solar arrays, which is fine with me as a taxpayer.
nothing wrong with our government investing in a long term strategy to get us off oil. if we don’t invest now in alternative energies, we will leave our kids with a polluted world with nothing to fall back on.
look at all the companies that get breaks: kestrel, for instance. it’s pathetic, all this ‘corporate welfare’.
imho, every home should have solar panels and a wind mill hooked up directly to their own use. grid problem: solved.
Yeah, go ahead and get off the grid with solar & individual wind turbines; just don’t look for tax credits.
/you’re right. tax credits only belong to big oil.
You’re correct. However, the big differrence is in the % of the projects that are Federally subsidized. These wind power developers are guaranteed to get 30-60% of the intitial start up costs paid for in one check from the US Treasury; were given special capital equipment depreciation terms that were far and above those of any other business segment; receive production subsidies for every watt they produce; received RECs that are hugely profitable and are based on the nameplate capacity of the turbines – NOT on the amount of actual energy produced; have had towns give most of these projects TIFF status in order to help them avoid huge amounts of local taxes; ….just how much more of your and my tax dollars are you willing to spend on an energy solution that only creates 17-21% of it advertised production output?
I appreciate your question, here are some of my questions:
how much of the Gulf coast are we willing to decimate? how much of the air we breathe are we willing to pollute? how much of our children’s future are we willing to destroy with carbon emissions?I understand your concern. I really do. But we hand out dollars to all kinds of industry. And the US is not alone in that. All of our competitor nations sponsor/assist/underwrite different industries. While we bicker among ourselves, Brazil, China, India and S Korea are becoming economic super powers.I consider alternative energy an investment in our future.
And….?
Don’t have to check. If it were financially feasible, they wouldn’t need all that public assistance to stay afloat.
sounds like a great project.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, one megawatt of wind-generated electricity can power 240-300 households per year.
A megawatt is one million watts
1000 watts is one kilowatt and 1000 kilowatt is a megawatt if you use 500 kilowatts a month you would wind up using one megawatt in two month. There is no way you can power 240-300 homes a year on one megawatt.
You are confusing kilowatts and kilowatt hours. If your average consumption is a kilowatt you would be using 24 kilowatt hours a day. That would result in a bill for 744 kilowatt hours for a 31 day month. The figure they give is based on peak demand needs. If those 240-300 homes were using a megawatt 24 hours a day, they would have huge electric bills. At Maine rates it would be well over $400 a month per house.
where and how does the power directly get to the Maine homeowners? If it goes into the Canadian power line it goes out of state. Where do the Maine homeowners see a savings.
Their figure is based on households consuming around 900 KWh/month and an approximate capacity factor of 30%. Households in the south tend to use more (electric air conditioning) and households in New England tend to use less. (Less need for air conditioning and non-electric heat.)
Maine’s average household use is about 550-600 KWh/month.
The important thing to remember, though is that wind power can’t power any modern household continuously (without batteries for storage) since it’s an intermittent source of electricity. It’s just a standard comparison they use, probably because it has great marketing appeal. But, residential consumption accounts for only about 35% of Maine’s electricity consumption. And, the grid can only take so much intermittent power before it becomes problematic to maintain a reliable grid. Beyond that point – about 25% – the grid operator is probably going to have to make some pretty substantial (and expensive) system changes or have a great deal more conventional fuel back up generation capacity – or both.
Not so – wind power produces 20% of the electricity in Denmark and Iowa – I can guarantee they all have modern households and don’t use batteries in their homes to store it.
When the wind blows in those locations, wind power displaces power from more expensive sources and reduces the cost of electricity.
Grid scale battery storage, however, is a reality in Japan, China, Hawaii and the eastern US – it has not increased electricity costs but has increased overall system reliability.
yessah
I don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing. I’m simply pointing out the error in saying that a certain amount of wind capacity can power xx number of homes (as the article stated). It leads the reader to believe that these homes could be powered non-stop by an intermittent source such as wind. That won’t happen without significant storage capacity.
There might be a small problem with your second statement. When a government mandates that a certain kind of energy source has to be used, it no longer has to compete purely on price. Not sure of the case in Denmark, but in some European countries, wind power is a first take source – it must go on the grid to the exclusion of other sources, price notwithstanding.
This is an excerpt from a 1/22/12 article in the New York Times about obstacles facing the Danes in increasing wind power penetrations in their country:
“Danish consumers already pay more than the European average for their power, and the Danish Parliament still must approve the target amid concerns that realizing the plan would be expensive and could damage competitiveness.”
I would be interested in reading up more on your references to grid scale battery storage currently in use in the places you mention, especially the eastern U.S. Do you have any links?
Denmark, Germany and Spain all have high energy prices. It is no coincidence they have lots of windsprawl.
woo hoo!!! I wish them the best – i hope they will be able to successfully wade through any and all hurdles – we need alternative energy sources!!! Go wind power…..BDN – I trust you will follow through and cover any and all updates as they occur!!
We DO NOT NEED alternative energy sources. Conventional is just fine. We have plenty of capacity for the ISO New England grid and Maine already produces far more electricity than we use. Pursuing the wind folly does nothing for the grid except increase costs and increase pollution. We have to overbuild transmission at a cost of billions just for the few days when the wind conditions are just right to send a surge of wind power into the grid. Then clean hydro is ordered to close the flow of water to turbines and clean burning natural gas is ordered to throttle back (running less efficiently and more polluting) to offset wind power. It is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and proliferation of industrial wind power sites are ruining Maine.
Yeah, because demand will never increase and we will never run out of oil or gas. Brilliant.
We only used up a little more than half of the earth’s gas an oil reserves, and the Earth has been around for billions of years, so why would ever need wind power. Those stupid Chinese put more wind farms on line in 2009 than there were in the world in 2003. Let them throw away their money on alternative energy. We can always import what ever we need from the Arabs.
Sheer genius. We have managed to use up – according to you – over half of the earth’s hydrocarbon reserves in the last 100 years or so, and you think we can “always” import more from the Arabs. Demand is increasing daily, and the rate of increase in demand is also increasing. The population of the planet has doubled in the last 20 years or so. Do you think that’s going to stop any time soon? Are all those additional people going to decide they don’t want electricity? Never mind the competition for the limited oil resources that remain, which will drive the cost to astronomical levels, sooner or later we are going to need another source. Wind, tide, solar, geothermal, nuclear — name your poison. They all have problems, but that’s pretty much all we have to choose from. Unless you have some secret technology you’ve been holding out on us??
Let’s use the source which makes real power to replace nasty coal plants, nuke or nat. gas. Wind does not cut it. If you want a smaller sized one to power your home or farm, no problem. We cannot cover Maine with windsprawl because it will not help more than 2%. Solar might help 1%. So there is still the problem of needing big base load generators and Maine will be blinking away with 750 red night lights and a ruined tourism industry. Who wants to visit when spinning distractions are the dominant feature on the landscape, 400-500 ft. tall? It is not MAine’s problem. The dirtiest power plants are in Ohio, Indiana and Penn. Let them solve their own problems. C02 increased 5.9% in 2010. Wind turbines are not helping. Why should we keep fueling the cruise ships with 500,000 gals of diesel fuel every 10 days, when a sail cruise is just as much fun? Why fuel the Chinese cargo ships when we can build stuff here? How long could we stretch the oil if we attempted to conserve? Remember, whoever has the oil last wins!!
okay how many GRID scale WIND turbines are needed to power up Boston alone?
We need to get the BDN string band, and anti-wind truth squad, and anti just about everything thought police, and snowmobile club, up there to work with these deluded Native Americans. Show them that despite the fact the wind power facilities are replicating like crazy all over the world their supporters and facilitators are all whack jobs; and in time the Maine backward glancing economic model will sweep the world as intellectual reverse time travel comes into its own.
It’s all over the world that people are now realizing the wind is nothing but a confiodence game. A scam of the taxpayer and ratepayer.
Pete, we need to take a very serious look at Baldacci and DECD…. A lot of very serious issues occurred back during deregulation (1998-2002). A lot of people were and are still involved.
http://www.asmainegoes.com/content/governor-nominates-john-richardson-head-decd
Look at Kurt Adams and what happened.
King was governor in 98-2002
And King is now destroying Maine as a wind power developer. He started us on the road to de-regulation and now he reaps the profits. Baldacci was just a dumb-ass pandering politician that the wind industry played like a fiddle as he was desperate to establish some kind of legacy. Some legacy—the destruction of Maine for a folly!
How long has Dylan Voorhees been in the NRCM? I wonder if his joining the dept. coincides with the wind push…
Not so – there are currently more than 200,000 MW of installed grid-scale wind capacity world-wide and its growing – exponentially – by 25% per year.
Africa, South America, Europe, India and especially China are investing heavily in wind power.
India is building a 3,000 MW wind farm – because it is cheaper than electricity from imported coal – they are investing heavily in solar as well.
China wants to produce `17% of it electricity from wind power by 2050 – 1 billion kW installed by 2050.
Why are they doing this?
Cuz they’re smarter than we are…
yessah
Foresight – One of the main components, other than insulated copper wire, is neodymium magnets: pretty much owned and mined EXCLUSIVELY by CHINA. China, despite any perceived dangers, are more than happy to throw men at the problem to attain the end result. China has gone through great lengths to place and keep their many feet in very many doors.
….and all were heavily subsidized by your Federal tax dollars – hope you enjoyed the view! :)
They will never pay for themselves up on the barrens. There just isn’t enough wind. The tribe had a small wind mill up there for about 3 years and they couldn’t light up one of the indian camps in august so they took it down, what does that tell ya. This si a great money grab by these energy companys.
Whenever I have been there the wind has always been blowing hard with all of those open spaces and no shelter from the wind.
I’ve spent years working on the barrens, all seasons all weather. I helped build the radar sites, I worked for northeastern blueberry when the Indians first bought it. There is wind but not the strong steady year round winds that are needed for the windmills. JMHO
What’s the wind like 400 feet up in the air, is the question. Maybe better, maybe not — but that’s where it needs to be for these things to work.
If they want to buy wind turbines, fine, as long as there is no undue environmental costs or impositions on other people’s interests. Just don’t use my money to subsidize it or require me to buy electricity from them.
I noticed Mr. Richardson coyly stated that the site was 2.2 miles from the nearest full-time resident. Does this mean that there are part-time residents closer? Angus King uses this same tactic when talking about his Highland Plantation wind proposal – pretend that the seasonal residents don’t matter, or don’t exist.
Since all the current grid scale wind projects in Maine run with only 2-4 full time local maintenance people, it a bit hard to understand how this medium sized project will employ 15-20 employees. Just one more example of a developer greatly exaggerating the jobs being created by the project they’re trying to get approved in these high employment times.
I will say that, on the surface, this project looks to be one of the best sited wind projects in Maine.
Nope not the best site If they do there research the winds won’t suport these. The Indians had a small wind mill up there for about 3 years then they took it down couse it didn’t work. JMHO
I agree, I was referring more to the fact that they’re unlikley to damage/devaluate another property owner’s land. Of course that won’t be assured until there’s a better understanding of the location of the turbines.
Actually, that’s incorrect. The tribe had a met tower up to record the wind speeds on the site. This data is used to determine the feasibility of the site. The project would not have gotten the commitment of the wind power developer, Exergy, without this data. The wind is quite sufficient for current technology turbines.
I have always said that would be an excellent place for something like that !!! Best news I’ve heard for Tribe, the county and all the people who it will help. Good thoughts and best wishes for all involved !!!!!!!!
Just like LNG, pretty soon we’ll have protesters worried about how to clean up spilled wind if there’s a leak.
I think Angus King told that joke back in 2010.
600 gallons of oil? not a small leak. look at the burning turbines. nice.
I really do hope the Passamaquoddy people can make a successful business with this abandonded 1 billion dollar US government back scatter radar site. My only concern is that many locals use the Shadagee Road to access the Airline (Rt.9) during summer months and this may be altered if the Passamaquoddy’s have exclusive ownership of the existing roadway.
A homeless shelter in the middle of the blueberry barrens is absurd. This site is 10 miles from Rt. 1 and during severe winters access can be limited due to winter storms. Getting services to this isolated location would put a strain on the limited resources of the area’s fire departments, police and ambulance units. This is a desolate part of Washington County which is why it is know as the ” Barrens”.
It will be interesting to see how the tribes handle the high potential for eagle kills in that area. It is believed to be on a migration flyway for lots of birds (and bats) – including the few Golden eagles that move through the northeast. Golden and bald eagles….these are supposed to be sacred to native peoples. It will be interesting indeed…..
Despite the few and often cosmetic efforts we’ve launched to aid their survival, unchecked human consumption of the planet’s resources of all kinds is to our wild co-inhabitants as the great meteorite was to the dinosaurs.
An eagle can see a field mouse in the grass 100 yards away. Do you think they will fly into a 400 foot windmill? BE SERIOUS
With all due respect, deerhntr: first – eagles don’t eat field mice. Second – studies have shown that raptors (birds of prey) get killed by turbine blades because, as they hunt they are looking down on the ground – not up or at eye level. And, the speed of blade movement out towards the edge of a turbine blade can reach up to 100-150 mph. If you were concentrating on looking for food on the ground while you are cruising above, you wouldn’t have time to move out of the way of a fast moving blade suddenly in your path. These are not things that wildlife are used to coping with, that suddenly appear on their landscape. More than 10,000 raptors are killed at just one or two wind farms each year. The data don’t lie. Wind turbines kill birds (and bats). And, if you like to hunt, you may have to say goodbye to deer around wind farms…..
What do they eat, ice cream. That funny, I have seen wild life films and it shows them doing just that. I was using this as an example of their eye sight. I live in Lincoln and have been up by FW’s sight and have not seen a bat or eagle on the ground dead. I do know of a couple of people that said they saw signs of deer and saw game birds. You have smoked way to much pot. I have stood under all the turbines in Lincoln and if you think the blades by the towers are turning 100-150 mph, someone is feeding you alot of BS. Go up to the sight in Lincoln next spring and see how many bats or eagles are laying dead on the ground. As I said before BE SERIOUS. I was born on a Thursday but not yesterday. Here is my data, you are not talking through your head, but a lower part of your body (10,000 per site.)
I didn’t say that the blades are turning at 100 mph….please read more carefully. and do take the time to learn more about these issues to find out why you may not easily find dead birds and bats at the base of turbines. We are all facing some tough decisions ahead, and we need to make those decisions based on good information – facts not myths. Also, unlike your response to me, I have not personally insulted you, deerhntr, but have tried to have a mature balanced dialogue. Let’s try to keep it that way.
“And the blade speed movement out towards the edge of the turbine blade can reach up to speeds of 100-150 mph.” That is what you wrote not me. You anti-wind people write stuff and do not even know what you are saying.
Don’t take him too seriously. He doesn’t care much for the outdoors apparently or he wouldn’t be defending windsprawl.
They turn 189 mph on the Rollins site. I guess the brake kicks in to limit the speed or the blades feather.
C’mon now, it used to be bird strikes until the the study was released that domestic house cats kill hundreds of thousands of birds each year for sheer pleasure. Now the anti wind lobby refers to Raptors, in the hopes they can fool the populace.
http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/materials/predation.pdf
I saw an eagle with a housecat in its’ talons. flying quite nicely. I don’t think the cat won that one.
These aren’t propellers on planes…..a little critical thinking goes a long way.
Lol…Good deal for them !! What excuse is our State leadership gonna use when it works out great for the Tribe ? A medium size turbine runs my entire property and I laugh at how cheap it is to run….all the crap you hear is propaganda aimed at keeping your dollars going into BIG OIL’s pockets……and any politician in Maine that speaks out against wind is already “IN” BIG OIL’s pocket….
What size turbine do you have (make, model, capacity)?
How many KWh does it produce each year?
Just curious.
how big is your battery bank?
barney franks Dude?
I’d like to know how much power you use. Do you have a simple 2-person household, or do you have a big dairy farm? Give us something to chew on here.
Why couldn’t the tribe have a casino and provide 500 jobs instead of 1 or 2?
15 – 20 permanent jobs? A $120 million dollar project is probably in the neighborhood of 20 or so turbines. First Wind just received a permit for a 19 turbine project that was going to create 2 permanent jobs. Get the feeling there’s going to be a little loafing going on at this site?
Another multi-million dollar boondoggle.
Yea but — if you could get a grant and spend other peoples money –wouldnt you ? There problem is always mismanagement of there projects . Thjey always go BROKE on there projects . They never have the right people running there projects !!!!
Great idea. Native American, Maine produced electricity. Better then very expensive, imported, Canadian Nuclear Electricity that we are paying for now.
Aroostook County gets power from Canada and their rates are the cheapest in Maine.
It is a sad day when native tribes turn away from reverence for the land to desecrating it. That is the case here, in search of $$$ from subsidies and RECs provided by the horrendous public policy that props up the wind folly. Sad, very sad.
Wind farm sounds good to me. Now we just need a bigger push for LNG, or a bigger push to rid the state of tree huggers who prevent us from having cheaper energy sources.
Wind power is not cheap
Another waste of money…….Pin wheels just dont work people, just another welfare game….
Open rivers to hydro, the fish dont need every river in the state, not that the ASC will ever get a fish up a river in the next 100 years… Obama the cant-do crowd…..
Where is the funding for the project coming from? Let me guess….The U.S. Department of the Interior/ Indian Affairs or should I have just said the American taxpayer. I know Washington County needs investment, but let’s know all the facts before we offer our applause. Exergy is partnering with the Passamaquoddy tribe because of the availability of Federal funds at their disposal, in my opinion. Where will this energy be sold, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island or here in Maine where we could use some cheaper energy.
“Richardson added that because the land already owned by the tribe, as well as the land planned to be purchased, are considered federal trust lands, all regulations for the proposed wind farm will come from federal, not state, agencies.”
And he’s a former Commissioner of DECD. You’d think he might have a clue about state laws. This project will need a whole lot of review and a big fancy permit from the DEP.
Permits may look fancy but DEP approves them all. The jobs they talk of are Stantac and Tetra-Tech jobs too. These companies can prove no birds fly over the barrens. Birds do not like blueberries.
I think blueberry growers WISH birds (and other wildlife) didn’t like blueberries! ;-)
You are right – Stantec and Co. appear to just pencil in their canned phrase ‘no or minimal impacts to wildlife’ in all of their environmental assessments paid for by the wind companies. It’s too bad that most of their employees aren’t qualified to do the work they are hired to do. Their work would never stand up to any real rigorous review. I’m not sure how Pelletier and company can live with the destruction of the environment that their work has allowed. But, unless someone takes the issue on – and asks for better oversight of environmental assessment companies, we all pay.
Good for them – let’s hope LePage and Company and the anti-wind clowns don’t stand in the way of creating jobs and renewable energy.
I’m sure someone will try something to stop them….heaven forbid Wasington County or the Passamaquoddy get anything… This states always against anything prosperous for that area. As you can see by most of the ignorant comments here … Good luck !
At least someone is trying to do something for Washington County
Good Luck! Finally some good news for the
Passamaquoddy Tribe!
I just hope the government doesn’t try to screw the Natives again..shut up,Collins- what do YOU know about being homeless??
maybe the home is for homeless airborne veterans , perhaps maybe from all the nations , french foreign legion etc.
Maine International Airborne Vetrans Home ?
Or could it be a CIA cover for a Covert Camp?
Potentially good news for a part of the state that could use the jobs. Native American tribes out west have some experience with wind farms, as a means of generating income, that has less negative impacts than cainos and cheap cigarettes – not that there is anything wrong with thoase options, right? Let’s see how this one develops!
watch them turn it into a casino
The Passmamaquoddy Tribe are always on the edge of going bankrupt . They always , always have to many big hands taking out of one small pocket !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dont get mad , you know its true !!!
The tribe has successfully run the blueberry company for nearly thirty years. Remember the media only reports the bad things about the tribe. They don’t do stories on all of the good things.
Find me the “average” wind speed for this site.
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/images/windmaps/me_80m.jpg 6 meters per second at 80 meters(at the hub) height? ~13mph.
The GE 1.5 mw turbine has a “rated” wind speed of 12 m/s which is almost 27 mph-every hour. This is where it makes its rated power. Any less and power production decreases exponentially. Half the wind speed is NOT half the power production. Go higher you say: doubling the height gains a meager 10 percent wind advantage across the entire yearly average. Windless days provides no power, breezy days provides a little power, while breezes found at all coastal regions provide the rated power that wind systems require. Add gearing and bigger blades to grab “more” air and you start playing with complex formulas which, in the end, require even more wind to start up.
http://www.mywindpowersystem.com/marketplace/ads/12-x-ge-wind-turbine-ge-1-5-mw-ge-1-5-sl-e-wind-turbine-as-new-for-sale-immediately-available/
At a cost of 1 million each, or better, and a life expectancy of 20 years (also the common maintenance agreement)- who wants to buy the scrap metal when its all said and done? What really keeps these ‘ideas’ alive are the government subsidies and incentives which invite bigger agencies on board. Look at the consumer tax breaks for alternative energy and home efficiency investments in this years tax returns. Ask yourself who has stock in companies like GE who pay virtually NO taxes at all.
The large scale wind power idea schemes would be great if they had a storage medium: queue the individual home owner windmill- which begins at about 5000 dollars for 1.5-2 kw all said and done. This, too, operates at a 13 m/s for full power- every hour. Too expensive for most when my own home requires much more. Solution is to educate yourself and source out the individual components in order to fabricate your own. Yet even that avenue is slowly becoming increasingly costly: the same system mentioned a few lines ago could be fabricated for about 400 dollars minus whatever tower solution you decide. In the home environment: it is ALL about increasing Efficiency. In the big business and those hoping to ride on its shoulders who fleece the uneducated and unsuspecting for the dolla bills ya’ll. God forbid using that power to provide cheaper energy and not a handful of jobs. Whatever happened to the first green energy: hydro power? Water runs ALL the time and can be channeled, stored and rationed. Why make sense nowadays?
I am truly amazed that if we have so many so called “EXPERTS” walking amongst us that the good old US of A has any problems at all.
Seems like most people posting are an authority of some sort or at least pretend they are.