Maine letters 

Redington Wind Farm Risks Area Economy

Doesn’t anyone care about the devaluation of property surrounding these ugly wind farms? Does anyone notice they are not in the investors’ back or front yards? They can sell their homes for top dollar. What about the millions of dollars worth of homes in Western Maine? Will anyone want to buy homes or build homes overlooking or in view of Redington Wind Farm? I doubt it. A biomass plant was built in back of my home in Stratton, a home I lived in for over thirty years and dearly loved. We couldn’t live there because the noise generated from this plant was so loud that we had to move. My house sat on the market 7 years. Do you really wish that for the homeowners in our area?

Wind projects receive government subsidies. Would there be such a need to convince the public that wind power could solve global warming if the subsidies disappear? I doubt it. If this were a sincere effort about global warming, water power would be used. There are several dams throughout the state that could be generating electricity. Water is available 24 hours a day; the dams are not an intrusive ugly eyesore for miles around and they already exist. Is this really about global warming or is it just another way to get federal monies?

There is also the fact that this area has a four-season economy. What about the thousands of year-round jobs that already exist in Franklin County? Many of these jobs depend on this pristine view. Think of the income generated by these second homes and the vacation industry. Do you really think the same people who have been vacationing in this area every year for the last twenty or thirty years will come here every year for the next twenty or thirty years to see the wind farms? The wind farm will create short-term jobs while destroying the long-term jobs. Who gives these people from away the right to risk our livelihoods?

Mary Henderson
Stratton, ME

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Don’t you get it ? The mountains in Maine above 2700 feet are protected.That is not the case in Mars Hill.The Readington Black Nubble project will all be built above 2700 feet Windturbines 410 feet tall within massive clear cuts and service roads.All with flickering 300 foot wide blades by day and flashing red lights by night.
It’s not about the wind mills or wind power.What it IS about is taking our mountains out of protected zoning.Readington and Black Nubble are not the only place the wind blows in Maine.This project is forever.We will not get get these beautiful mountains back if the project is approved.Think about it folks.Keep our mountains protected.I wonder if most people have even seen or know where Readington and Black Nubble Mountains are.You can’t compare the two projects.They are nothing alike

Terry Tesseo
Coplin Plantation, ME

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Let me comment on some points made in your editorial “Mars Hill farm shows way to cleaner power”:
“Wind farm” is what some people call these huge industrial installations. Many prefer the more accurate description “wind POWER PLANT”.
It has not been established that wind power can make a serious contribution to fighting global warming. Wind power plants must have back-up from reliable (usually fossil-fuel) plants for the times they are not producing, and often these reliable plants must be kept running and producing emissions even when they are not putting power into the grid. At the recent Redington/Black Nubble hearings, the developers were unable to show via analysis of the grid when and where they would actually cause a reduction in emissions.
The case against the Redington/Black Nubble plant was not simply an aesthetic one; it raised serious doubts about the efficacy of the plant to live up to its supporters’ rosy predictions about power production and emissions reduction.
It is correct that many are concerned about the power plant’s effect on the wilderness, but you go on later to say the “most significant” drawback is the effect of the highly visible installation on “trail enthusiasts” hiking the Appalachian Trail. Not true: The huge turbines will be highly visible from many other points, and, as has been stated in another comment, the effect will disturb more than the occasional hiker, probably doing serious harm to the region’s economy.
The protection the mountains now enjoy was established for many reasons, which have been cited and discussed numerous times, so it is disengenuous for the editorial to decide that what hikers want to see or not see is the main problem. “Wilderness” takes into account habitat for many species, many undeveloped peaks and ridgelines which form a priceless region which is at the moment unfragmented. Why should we make a huge sacrifice for very little unreliable power? Those mountains are irreplaceable – the region is a treasure which draws and has drawn people to Franklin County.
How can you call an elevated site, whose elevation (Mars Hill’s or Redington/Black Nubble’s) makes what is done to it visible for great distances, “a wooded site”? Rather like calling the wide, permanent roads needed to transport the huge turbines, and later the vehicles to maintain them, slightly altered logging roads, as some wind developers have tried to characterize them.
Let’s be honest and admit that wind power plants on mountains will amount to an industrialization of the fragile high landscape of Maine. These plants cannot fail to change forever the character–including the ecosystems–of some of the most beautiful parts of our state.

Vera Trafton
Phillips, ME

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