Local voices matter in wind farm debate
Bethel and the surrounding communities are attracting visitors, tourists, skiers, snowboarders, restaurant clients, hikers, kayakers, ATV riders, snowmobilers, hunters, artists, fishermen, trappers, photographers, second-home owners and new residents and all the facilities, stores, restaurants and businesses that serve them. What is it if not the regional character and scenic views that attract them? Is it not our beautiful mountains, lakes, forests and rivers?
Now corporate wind also is coming to the area. The people of Milton asked to have a voice in preserving the regional character and scenic views, as did the selectmen of Bethel, Greenwood, Woodstock and Peru. Only if Milton is removed from the expedited wind development process will these regional and local values be considered when Ever Power of Pennsylvania seeks a permit to build 12 massive turbines on Bryant and Chamberlain mountains.
Is it too much to ask the Land Use Planning Commission to consider the wishes of the people who live here? We are not saying no to wind. We are just asking that these local values be considered during the permit process. Let not the answer my friends be blowin’ in the wind.
Peter J. Fetchko
Woodstock
Climate change threat is real
Donald Trump’s nomination of an anti-environment leader, Scott Pruitt, to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicates that he continues to deny 99 percent of scientists and 100 percent of facts on the ground globally concerning climate change.
The University of Maine’s Harold Borns and Sharon Tisher in their Dec. 7 BDN OpEd list many of the current climate impacts facing Maine in 2016. These facts are visible.
Fossil fuel production, use and disposal are a cause of local, national and global threats not only to the climate but also to air, land and water quality, affecting human, ecosystem and economic health. Now is the time to work with other nations to implement the Paris climate agreement to adapt to the climate impacts and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Pentagon views climate change as the foremost threat to national security, more so than terrorism.
Please call on our congressional delegation to support the Clean Power Plan and end the billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies.
Pam Person
Orland
Collins must fight Pruitt nomination
I am deeply concerned about the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt has joined a lawsuit against the EPA for its Clean Power Plan, and he describes himself as a leading advocate against the EPA’s “activist agenda.”
And, yet, the data show that reduction in emissions from coal-fired power plants has reduced the amount of mercury in bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Maine, which indicates fish and organisms lower on the food chain also ingest less mercury. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program states that mercury levels of fish in lakes, streams and reservoirs continues to pose a human health concern.
In 2009, Sen. Susan Collins co-sponsored the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act. Unfortunately, it was not enacted, but I am hopeful that Collins’ position on carbon limits and clean energy remain intact.
I urge Collins to resist pressure from her GOP colleagues and energy industry lobbyists who are eager to shred our environmental protection laws. Pruitt has dedicated his career to challenging environmental protection regulations. We need an EPA administrator whose actions will be informed by scientific data, not power industry profits. We depend on Collins to cast a vote of no on this misguided nomination.
Michelle Gregoire
Portland