July 24, 2013
Maine

DEP to hold public meeting July 24 on proposed 8-turbine Canton Mountain Wind project

Terry Karkos, Staff Writer | Sun Journal | July 23, 2013 | www.sunjournal.com

CANTON —The Maine Department of Environmental Protection will host a public meeting on Wednesday, July 24, to receive comments and answer questions on its draft analysis for a proposed 8-turbine wind farm.

The meeting on Canton Mountain Wind LLC’s $47 million project will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Canton Fire Station on Route 108 in Canton.

Canton Mountain Wind LLC is a subsidiary of Patriot Renewables LLC of Quincy, Mass.

Several DEP representatives will attend. These include Commissioner Patricia Aho, project manager Erle Townsend, and other staff, along with contractors involved with the agency’s review of the project’s Site Law and Natural Resources Protection Act permit applications, Jessamine Logan, DEP spokeswoman, stated Monday in a news release.

The DEP will take the comments voiced at the second public meeting into consideration as its review moves forward before a final decision is issued, Logan said.

While this is the second public meeting on the project, it is the third time the DEP has held two public meetings on a wind energy application as part of an internal review process established in 2011 by Commissioner Aho, Logan said.

The first public meeting was held on March 22, 2012. The project was unveiled to the public on Feb. 15, 2011.

The internal review process requires two public meetings be held on all proposed grid-scale wind power projects in Maine, Logan said.

Developed to ensure adequate opportunity for public comment and a transparent, inclusive review of often controversial wind power projects, the new process also requires the presence of the DEP’s commissioner or deputy commissioner at the second meeting to hear the public’s comments on DEP’s draft analysis. The draft analysis for the Canton Mountain Wind project is available at www.maine.gov/dep/land/sitelaw/selected-developments/index.html.

Canton Mountain Wind LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Patriot Renewables, LLC. The proposed project includes a 24-megawatt wind power generation facility on Canton Mountain, an operations and maintenance building, access road and crane paths, and a 4.8-mile electrical collector line.

According to the project’s fact sheet, the project will connect to a new substation off Ludden Lane in Canton that will be built for the proposed Saddleback Ridge Wind Project in Carthage.

The Carthage project was previously permitted until a court ruling in March returned it to DEP. The Saddleback project license is being reconsidered under the new noise standards (42 decibels adjusted instead of 45 dBA) after a remand by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, Erle Townsend, DEP project manager, said Tuesday by email.

For more information about the proposed Canton Mountain Wind project and DEP’s review, contact DEP project manager Townsend at erle.townsend@maine.gov or visit www.maine.gov/dep/ftp/WindPowerProjectFiles/CantonMountainWind to view the application and related documents.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/07/24/dep-to-hold-public-meeting-july-24-on-proposed-8-turbine-canton-mountain-wind-project/