January 29, 2012
Letters, Maine

A response to ‘A Tale of Two Towers’

The Gazette, knox.villagesoup.com 28 January 2012

While I agree that the Camden Hills Regional High School Windplanners deserve an “A” in civics for their perseverance in pursuing an alternative energy project for the school community, why does Philip Conkling’s Dec. 15 article: “A Tale of Two Towers” purport to be about the Windjammers success when its primary discussion is about Ragged Mountain and Vinalhaven?

Why illustrate this article about the Windjammers’ success with a half-page color photo of Ragged Mountain, which is three miles away from the school? Instead, print a half-page color photo of the field behind the Camden Hills Regional High School where the new 121-foot wind turbine, not including the blade height, is to be installed. One wonders what interest the Island Institute has in a mainland school project such as this?

Unlike the Vinalhaven turbines, which may have had some economic benefits for the community (while other families had to abandon their homes), there would be no economic benefit from developing industrial wind in Camden. We would suffer a great deal of environmental destruction and intolerable noise levels, in addition to lost property values, etc.

I am one of the “group of local citizens” who volunteered to work on the wind power topic with the now defunkt Energy Committee. In spite of what Conkling says, the reason the Ragged Mountain project did not proceed was because it was clearly a bad idea that had very little public support and a great deal of adamant opposition, not to mention a Comprehensive Plan Ordinance limiting development above an altitude of 500 feet.

Industrial wind on Ragged Mountain was soundly rejected at a local, democratic level: The Select Board found no support for it. Perhaps our civic-minded students might also succeed where the Energy Committee failed when it abandoned its other objectives which were to evaluate the town’s use of hydro power, solar energy and especially conservation measures to help increase our energy independence.

Dorie Klein

President, Friends of Ragged Mountain

Camden


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/01/29/a-response-to-a-tale-of-two-towers/