What about the poor birds we will lose their lives when they get chopped to pieces by the massive blades

PLEASE STOP THE LOSS OF LIFE

oh give me a break

this is the problem with so called renewable energy. first the libs want it, but then they complain about birds... please! the birds can see the wind turbines and hear them, and eventually they will change their flight paths to avoid them all together. the liberals just need something to whine about! build the wind farms here or off the coast, i dont care! just please, stop stopping innovation and keeping my rates astronomical bc of the monopoly that is the electric company. the problem is that the librals claim they want change, eco-friendly what not, but they don't really want anything to change except laws, and so called rights for those who live "alternative lifestyles"

PLEASE DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

How many more Mr. Speaker...How many birds must lose their lives so 23,500 homes can have power?

Birds, bats, and other wildlife are studied ad nauseum to ensure minimal impact by wind turbines. Perhaps anyone concerned about birds should check the stats on how many are killed each year by housecats, automobiles, and plate glass windows. Oh wait - we might have to outlaw those as well!

So the 23500 homes will be powered 24hours/ day by the killer turbines, I think not. Just like the ethanol production , the only ones that will benefit are the windmill owners .

Being a back to earth liberal I really don’t see how the issues get so confused. Maybe it is because the conservative movement has been hoodwinked into believing that “what is good for business is good for the people of our state”. Here in Millinocket is a perfect example of how this is not true. The stream running through town is rising into people’s cellars due to the containment behind dams. More electricity is being produced than ever before, yet there are no production jobs currently at this mill town location. No jobs no co-operation that is this liberals view. The time to question authority is at this stage of development, before they ship all of our natural resources off to settle foreign trade imbalances

bobsmith... Didnt I see you infront of KFC in a Bikini last month?

What about the poor birds we will lose their lives when they get chopped to pieces by the massive blades

PLEASE STOP THE LOSS OF LIFE

STOP......STOP all aircraft, both jet and recip engines, from flying to save our wild bird population. Ref. ..........Jet liner ditching in the Hudson River after striking Canada geese. WTF.....GET REAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This article just goes to show how biased the Bangor Daily news actually is! I heard they had protesters there to greet them, why was that not mentioned? I think alot goes unsaid when it comes to INDUSTRIAL WIND in Maine. Seems that Baldacci waved at them on the way in and wouldn't look at them coming out. Did he think he had a welcoming committee waiting to greet him, and then realized they were protesters, and then wouldn't give them the time of day. Its his way or nothing I guess. Would have been nice to have the local news to ask how these folks felt about it too. We are ALL Mainers.....Guess your opinion doesn't count if you don't agree with big wind!

I was at the protest. Gov. Baldaci waved as he went by.BDN did interview some of the protesters . WABI only got First Wind and Gov. Baldaci's views. In the past...This is covered by spouting the propaganda straight from First Wind spokespeople . The last paragraph usually states some in the area do not like wind farms etc. But never ever does the TV give the drawbacks of wind farms. We may as well be in Hitler's Germany. It is called state media. ...corporations rule.

There are only 3 blades on the windmill and the RPM's are very slow so i don't see the birds being chopped up if they fly into the blades so be it.

Just remember this is GREEN ENERGY.

Bigdog: It not green energy...it red energy ....spilled blood from dead birds

Wind Industrial POWER IS NOT GREEN!

1. It is electrical generation that we do not need. Period. The State of Maine currently generates more electricty than it uses and exports the surplus out of state. Even economic development models that project high growth do not absorb all of the state’s current production capacity in the next 30 years.

2. Industrial wind development in Maine will not replace fossil fuel baseline plants. Due to the intermittent and unpredictable nature of wind for electrical generation, all the megawatts of potential wind power must be duplicated with megawatts from reliable, baseline generation in order for the electrical grid to balance and provide electricity to meet on-demand needs without brown-outs.

3. It is a myth that wind-produced electricity is “free”. Due to the high investment cost compared to the low output, wind-produced electricity is so expensive that in a free-market economy, it would not compete with other sources of electricity; hence, it is expensive, not free.

4. It is a myth that wind-produced electricity is “green”. It is not “green” because fossil fuel baseline plants must be in place and when these are operating at greatest efficiency, they are less polluting. When wind-produced electricity enters the grid, these plants must be throttled back or placed in “spinning reserve” mode, operating at inefficient levels and creating greater pollutants. Isn’t it ironic that when the grid receives kilowatts from wind turbines that the grid is forced to produce more air pollution?

5. Wind turbines do not result in a net “savings” of energy. Because it takes so many wind turbines that produce so little electricity, it actually consumes more energy to manufacture the steel towers and install them than any wind tower will produce in comparable energy in its useful lifetime, which is 20-25 years. Becuase the turbine must continually rotate so it doesn’t freeze up, each turbine uses an enormous amount of petroleum based lubricants.

6. There are severe environmental trade-offs incurred with industrial wind site development. A site like the Rollins project in Lincoln Lakes will consume more than 1000 acres of land, an acreage far larger than most Maine farms. It is more than the skiable acreage of either Sunday River or Sugarloaf ski resorts. It entails creating a 3-6 acre clearcut for each turbine site, blasting and leveling, digging down to bedrock and pouring tons of concrete to anchor each 262 foot tower which is topped by a 92 ton nacelle (turbine generator) and 253 foot wide blades. A huge, wide network of roads must be created up to and across ridgelines to get these huge components into place. At Rollins, more than 20 miles of powerlines will be cut. All of the turbine sites and powerlines will be kept cleared by the use of herbicides, effecting dozens of streams, all of the lakes around Lincoln and the watershed of three rivers. Siltation of streams and lakes will occur from erosion from all this construction. Lastly, important wildlife habitat will be fragmented and ruined. Thirty eight residences are within the blasting zones, all on wells, and changes in underground seams of water are a frequent consequence of blasting.

7. There are severe impacts on the lives of people living near industrial wind turbines. The Rollins project does not meet the emerging recommendation of these turbines being located more than a mile from residences. Hundreds of people who have chosen to live in rural parts of the Lincoln area are within the impact zone for noise from these turbines. Noise is relentless when it is windy, as experienced by people living with the turbines in Mars Hill. Read their testimony in letters here: http://www.windaction.org/faqs/15115

Even more acute, however, is the effect of sub-sonic waves from turbines. An unexpected, yet menacing threat to health is vibroacoustic disease. The turbines affect people in these ways: Symptoms include sleep disturbance, headache, tinnitus, ear pressure, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, visual blurring, tachycardia, irritability, problems with concentration and memory, and panic episodes associated with sensations of internal pulsation or quivering which arise while awake or asleep.

Source: Dr. Nina Pierpont, Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment. Is this what we do to people’s lives to build something we do not need?

8. Supporting industrial wind in Maine means supporting the folly of Baldacci’s Wind Task Force, which was a “stacked” group intended to put out what the lobbyists from the wind industry wanted. The ill-conceived and rushed report of the Task Force is now in statutory form. It expedites the permitting process of the DEP and limits public input on decisions that change the landscape of rural Maine. To reach its goal of 2,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity by 2015, the state will have to allow 34 of the projects the size of Rollins to be built. This will entail well over 20,000 acres of land and blast away miles of ridgetops, creating industrial sprawl all over rural Maine, without a single kilowatt being used in Maine.

9. Supporting industrial wind sites will cost you money. There is a disconnect between the Task Force goal of laying waste to rural Maine with industrial wind sites and the users of electricity in Southern New England: the inadequacy of the existing transmission lines through Maine to handle surges of wind energy on windy days. Also, Aroostook County, where many potential sites are located is connected to Canada, not the rest of New England. The answer? A $1.4 billion dollar proposal to upgrade and expand transmission lines. This cost will show up in your Bangor Hydro bill for decades to come. You will pay dearly for something we don’t need and for something for which we derive no benefit.

10. Supporting industrial wind sites supports wealthy investors and corporations raiding the public treasury. According to the US Energy Information Office in 2007, wind energy is subsidized at a cost of $690 million, which worked out to $23.37 per megawatt produced. This compares to federal subsidies of 67 cents for hydroelectric and 25 cents for fossil fuel per megawatt produced. The industrial wind industry would not exist without tax equity financing, production tax credits, double balance 5 year accelerated depreciation, guaranteed access to markets from Renewable Energy Portfolio schemes from the states, and the ability to sell so-called renewable energy tax credits to companies that pollute. It is an incredible array of money making schemes and scams on the taxpayers and ratepayers. Thus, the industry is not about creating “green” energy and saving the planet. It is about how to co-opt concerns about global warming and dependence on foreign oil, and slick propagandizing to position wealthy investors and corporations to get rich as “pigs at the public tax subsidy trough”. If industrial wind sites had to be built with only the usual standards of the free market economic system, there would never be a single one built.

STOP THE SCAM!

This is wonderful news! Now let's keep going and get that farm going in Lincoln.

Some commenters are spewing an awful lot of misinformation. While First Wind may also be guilty of misinforming the public, this does not excuse lying on the part of those opposed to wind turbine development.

A few of these things are true:

1. Maine does export power.

2. Wind turbines do make some noise and create seasonal "flicker" in their shadows.

3. Wind turbines are very large objects and generally need to be sited along ridgelines in Maine to get adequate wind.

4. The construction of access roads and powerlines is generally necessary in the construction of wind farms.

However these are also true:

1. The production of wind energy creates nearly 0 pollution.

2. Maine has some of the highest air pollution rates in the country.

3. Most of this air pollution originates from industrial activity (including coal generators) and transportation emissions upwind.

4. Every kWh of power produced from a wind turbine results in one less kWh being produced by burning coal, oil, and natural gas in the ISO-NE grid, reducing pollution and improving Maine's air pollution problem.

The big problem with wind is that it is a diffuse resource and therefore we need a lot of wind turbines, rather than one massive smokestack. While you may not be able to see the smokestacks from here, the current way of doing things is killing us. The mostly invisible air pollution is poisoning our children, leading to high asthma rates, acidifying our streams and killing our fish.

The key here is that we find ways to internalize the costs of wind development being borne by their neighbors, and pass those costs on to all ISO-NE ratepayers. How does free electricity for every house that experiences flicker sound? Also, the towns where these things are located gain a significant amount in property tax revenue. Each wind turbine produces roughly enough in taxes to educate 5 children per year. I think the state should propose a revenue-neutral tax on electricity production in the State, with the money earmarked for reducing income taxes.

There goes mountainmain spewing his opinion all over the rest of us. WIND POWER IS GREEN AND WE ALL KNOW IT, at least much greener than our options now!!! Find something else to protest, you and all your mountain cronies in Lincoln are the laughing stock of the entire state. I'll say again, I CAN'T WAIT to see the turbines from my family camp on the lake in Lincoln!!

Enron East. First Wind has recycled Enron employees. Is it just me or are all the BDN pro wind farmers kinda' on the nasty side? Seems like the same ones who were at the Friends of Lincoln Lakes website. The Enron guys bilked Ca. out of billions. Maine is next accompanied by the same lack of civility. Bribe here bribe there ...great while it lasts. You guys know it will end just like Enron. One day you are just belly up. The gravy train might be drying up what with change in DC.. Larry Summers can't hide the fact forever that he is a major league criminal.

Very few coal powered power plants in ME. Mostly gas. Some hydro and pulp wood plants, although alternative, do not get tax credits because they weren't built before 2000. Bet that change in law cost First wind a lot. Criminals passing laws for criminals. First wind has a lot of recycled Enron executives and same financial backers. Enron East. Remember the rolling black outs ...cost Ca. a bundle. That is what ME has in store. Thanks Gov. Baldaci. Pay to play. Free electricity for households which experience flicker is cruel...as those houses are unlivable. A group home close to the Mars Hill wind farm had to close. Kids were having more seizures. Free electricty would not have helped at all. What a great day for maine that the Stetson Mt. wind farm is now online.

Finally a farm I can believe in! Oh that is grand, all praise the Messiah Obama for this alternative to drilling. Are we really concerned about birds people...seriously? Please stop you're embarrassing yoursevles.

and yet they won't build the boat launch...

a windfarm boat launch

I for one appreciate the fact-packed argument MOUNTAIN MAN made above for taking a second look at industrial wind farming in Maine. It's too bad Maine's media establishment has with rare exception failed to take as much trouble to enlighten us on such a locally important issue.

Lengthy as it is for a reader comment site like this, Mountain Man's contribution is worth the full attention of any reader with more on their mind than yapping at the bad liberals and how Maine is supposedly so business unfriendly. I didn't check out Mounhtain Man's every fact but if there's any "misinformation" in there, I didn't pick up on it. Those of you who call Mountain Man a liar or act indignant that he, too, should actually be allowed to express his opinion, perhaps you would bother to share with us just what it was he said that wasn't true.

I'm surprised Baldacci was able to even find Washington County, I didn't think he knew where it was.

I'm surprised Baldacci still has hair, I didn't he had any o_o

BOAT LAUNCH OR BUST

Some entertainment for the Czars

Fearful of full anarchy and destruction of the dedication of their Wind Toy Castle of Folly on Stetson Mountain, the citizen rabble were refused entrance to speak to the Wind Czars. Chief Czar of Firstwind , fearful of a full fledged insurrection and takeover by the rabble and mob of ten, would refuse their entry to their castle built from the work of the masses. This could be most embarrassing with the Kremlinesque leader visiting for the play.

Asked to remove themselves to within 30 feet of centerline of the public way, they still feared the weapons of First Amendment Truth .As the privileged entered and exited the Castle of Folly, some eyes became curious and asked the hearty peons the meaning of the waved weapons of wood and words. Such an airing might prove most destructive to their new found Blow Toy Kingdom some would say. Words of Scam, Tax Folly, and most importantly, the exercising of peon legal rights, Will prove Most Costly to the Czars, who rarely see such things of danger utilized by the mindless masses.Tis better to Lie and Keep them dumb, so other Castles of Folly can be built for their future entertainment.

Imagine what might have happened if there had been eleven there!

Rogue_Wave -- I love you!!

Rogue_wave and viper13, sorry if what mountain man talks about is way over your heads, but sure seems from all the writing he is 100% more intelligent than either one of you two put together! Maybe YOU should really read and TRY to understand what he is saying. Hate to have you look back in a few years and say, we should have listened....

Touche, Im not saying the M-man isnt intellegent and we are welcome to whatever view we choose. Both sides have pros and both have cons; this is where you voice them, either metaphorically or not. Share the love viper13, share the love.

Bangorian ...if you like windsprawl so much you should have a project there. The Task Force on Wind is kind of suspicious. Kurt Adams taking a job with FirstWind soon after, the DEP fawning over FW ,Baldacci's support over ONGOING UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS at Mars Hill, it has to make one wonder whois buying off whom. A responsible Gov would make FW comply with the noise limits and not allow any further operation until an independent firm measured the noise and declared it to be within spec. Mars Hill Citizens of the United States of America were lied to and are being ignored by our own elected officials. Multinational corporations nearly ruined the paper industry in Maine and they will ruin the woods and waters next while taking down tourisn. I talked with a group from downstate who stated that they will never ski at Mars Hill again. They were disgusted with the noise and distraction of the Giant Pinwheels. Just what a struggling ski area needed, windsprawl to drive away business. We will never need energy so badly that our backcountry should be sacrificed. Make the dirty coal fired plants in the midwest convert to LNG or invent some new technology. Windmills are inefficient and too much power is lost running it to MassConn so they can waste it.