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Dixfield selectmen vote to send ordinance draft to Belfast lawyer
Credit: MATTHEW DAIGLE, Staff Writer | Sun Journal | September 29, 2015 | www.sunjournal.com ~~
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DIXFIELD – The Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 Monday to have Belfast lawyer Kristen Collins draft language on sound limits for the Wind Energy Facility Ordinance.
At its Aug. 25 meeting, the board voted to accept a citizens’ petition requesting the ordinance include the complete Maine Department of Environmental Protection sound level limits, which are 42 decibels for nighttime and 55 decibels for daytime.
Town Manager Carlo Puiia said he discovered there are 26 pages on the DEP’s standards for sound limits.
“There’s a lot of stuff in here that doesn’t even apply to the town of Dixfield,” Puiia said. “It’s my thought Kristen Collins, who has worked on this ordinance before, should be the one to draft the language for the ordinance draft that will be put before the people at the June ballot next year.”
Resident Dan McKay asked Puiia what sections of the DEP’s sound limit standards didn’t apply to Dixfield.
Puiia said one section referred to “unorganized territories of the state.”
“That wouldn’t really be relevant to Dixfield,” he said. “The idea is to make sure the ordinance fits the town of Dixfield.”
The ordinance was written after Patriot Renewables LLC of Quincy, Mass., approached Dixfield officials five years ago about constructing 13 wind turbines on Colonel Holman Mountain ridge. Tom Carroll, project coordinator, said earlier this year that the ordinance’s 35-decibel nighttime limit would likely prohibit a wind farm in Dixfield.
The June 2016 vote on the ordinance will be the fourth since the original passed in November 2012. Revisions presented in November 2014 and June 2015 were rejected.
If voters approve the latest draft, it will replace the original ordinance which still stands.
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