Jackson residents to vote on wind power ordinance
Credit: Chris Facchini, Anchor/Reporter, www.WCSH6.com 5 February 2010
Late last year, voters in Dixmont approved an ordinance to regulate wind power development. Tomorrow, people in the neighboring town of Jackson will be taking up their own wind power ordinance.
Debbie Ludden says she and her fellow planning board members spent more than a year researching and developing the wind power ordinance that Jackson residents will vote on.
“All of our research was done on the health safety and welfare of the townspeople and we didn’t give any consideration into how much money anyone was going to make and how much money the town was going to make,” Ludden said.
The 56 page document includes regulations for noise levels and setbacks from property lines. One of the most controversial regulations is a requirement that industrial size turbines have setbacks 13 times greater than the height of the turbine. For a 400 foot tall turbine, like the ones in Mars Hill or Freedom, that would be a mile setback.
Andrew Price, one of the partners of Mount Harris Wind LLC wants to develop a wind project on ridgelines in Jackson. He says this ordinance would kill that project.
“The ordinance if it is passed will prohibit our potential wind project in Jackson and I would say all other wind projects and so it would effectively be a ban on all wind development.”
Price says the town stands to lose a unique opportunity to own a wind turbine or share the companys profit.
“Clean renewable power generation could be an economic engine not only for Jackson but for Waldo County and the entire state of Maine,” Price said.
But Ludden says she feels that the mile setback is necessary to protect property owners.
“I work with some people who live by some of the turbines in Freedom so I’ve listened to a lot of what they had to say,” Ludden said.
It is now up to the towns voters to weigh the information carefully, because one thing both sides can agree upon is that there is a lot at stake. The vote will be held tomorrow at 9am at the Jackson Community Center. If you would like to see a copy of the ordinance click here. We have also posted links to websites for supporters of the ordinance and Mount Harris Wind LLC.
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
Some possibly related stories:
The copyright of this article is owned by the author or publisher indicated. Its availability here constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law as well as in similar "fair dealing" exceptions of the copyright laws of other nations, as part of National Wind Watch's effort to advance understanding of the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development. For more information, click here.
