CLIFTON, Maine — Walk through Rebel Hill Farm and the nearly 60 acres of woods that surround it, and it’s easy to see the “enchanted forest” that Peter and Julie Beckford call their backyard.
The couple, who grow and sell native perennial plants on their small farm, say the $25 million five-turbine wind farm planned on nearby Pisgah Mountain threatens their very livelihood.
To fight the wind farm project, the Beckfords asked the town’s board of appeals to review the planning board’s approval of the project, citing 11 items they contend the planners did not fully consider.
The appeals board decided late Wednesday to deny their appeal.
“We won’t be able to farm here if that project gets built,” Peter Beckford said recently. “Effectively, I would lose the future use of that land.”
The panel’s written ruling will be presented to the public 7 p.m. Monday at the town office.
The Beckfords have used their hands to built their homestead and dig the earth over the last 23 years, growing most of what they eat on Rebel Hill Farm and selling about 100 different types of perennials to make ends meet.
Bangor resident Paul Fuller and other Pisgah Mountain LLC partners gained unanimous planning board approval in October — after nearly three years in the planning process — to put up five Vestas V90 1.8 megawatt wind turbines on top of the 768-foot-high mountain. Once built, the windmills are expected to generate electricity for 3,000-4,000 Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. customers.
One of the biggest issues for the Beckfords is the two cabins on their property they put up this past summer.
After the buildings were completed, the Beckfords — who have said they built the cabins to protect their land — asked the planning board to redraw the setbacks for the turbines.
“The wind turbines have to be 4,000 feet from occupied structures,” Peter Beckford said at a public hearing in June.
The planning board and town code enforcement officer have said that the cabins were put up after the developer started the permit process. They have ruled that the small cabins, which lack water and sewer, are not occupied structures under the town’s rules.
The appeals board agreed with town planners and upheld the earlier decision.
One of the cabins is a 10-by-12 foot wooden building nestled in the woods with bunk beds made out of branches, a table, chair and wood stove. It is situated about 1,500 feet from the Beckfords’ home and 3,000 feet from the closest turbine location. It is just large enough to require a town permit.
The second wooden cabin is less than 100 square feet and therefore didn’t require a permit.
“This is a big project and in some way that trumps our building permit,” Beckford said.
The sound of the 455-foot-tall windmills, which will sit about 4,500 feet from the Beckfords’ home, is another major issue, Peter Beckford said, because they will ruin his garden sanctuary with their constant “whoop, whoop, whoop” sound. He described his family as “collateral damage” of the wind farm.
“Our gardens are just beyond the setbacks, just beyond the 4,000 feet,” he said. “I can’t work in the garden with that noise and the low frequency noise I won’t be hearing.”
Noise made by commercial wind turbines is one of the biggest issues Mainers have had with the state’s rapidly growing wind energy industry.
Turbine noise is a problem in places such as Mars Hill and Freedom because homes in those communities are as close as 1,500 feet — the minimum state setback — from the windmills, Fuller said. That is way too close, he said.
“The reason our facility can pass some very strict sound ordinance rules is probably because we have some of the largest setbacks in the state at 4,300 feet,” the distance between the turbines and the nearest house on Rebel Hill Road, Fuller said.
The town’s rules double state standards for ambient sound and more than double setbacks between turbines and homes. Clifton leaders did this by restricting wind sound levels to 45 decibels at night and 55 decibels during the day anywhere within 4,000 feet. The state allows those noise levels out to a mile, or 5,280 feet, Planning Board Chairman Eric Johns explained.
By shortening the distance, “we took the sound … 10 decibels below the state’s restriction,” he said.
Beckford says he believes town officials had already made their decision to support the wind project before it was permitted and well before he approached them eight months ago about his cabins and moving the setbacks.
“My feeling is the town government, the town bodies, wanted this project and they were going to do everything they could to see that it would happen,” he said.
Whether the couple will take the fight to the next level, Penobscot County Superior Court, is still up in the air, according to Beckford, who said the battle against the project has consumed his family’s life.
The adverse health effects of these monstrous industrial installations are serious.
See:
http://www.windtaskforce.org/page/adverse-health-effects
sorry – no health problems associated with wind turbines.
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/01/17/report-wind-turbines-don-cause-health-problems/bkC5kpl9JKPr4Fp67UUAOM/story.html
There are thousands of dead birds who if they could, would seriously disagree with you regarding the health hazards of wind energy.
BTW, from what I have read over the years the particular type of (propeller) wind turbines we use mostly in this country are not the best option for producing energy on a large scale. What would be better, I think, are the small vertical turbines that are available for home use.
I believe that producing energy at the point of use is the key to making it sucessful as well as practical. But, there is no one trying to make billions of dollars off of that.
BDN Editors. Please assign this reporter to all wind turbine stories. Please remove Abigail Curtis from all wind turbine stories. Her reporting is biased. I ask you to match her Searsport gas tank reporting adjectives against her Frankfort wind turbine reporting. A 150 foot tall gas tank is described as massive while six, 450 foot tall wind turbines are described as a small wind project. You only need to read the last few articles on both issues to see this bias clearly.
I make no stance on the wisdom of the gas tank, but use the issue to point out bias in reporting.
Wind developers own this state. One day we will wake up and realize what we’ve done to our state. And putting these farmers out of business represents Maine being “open for business?”
there’s no reason he can’t work his fields.. he uses the excuse “he can’t stand the whoop..whoop…whoop… and the low level noise..” both of which are non-existant. I suggest he look at real studies… not ones put out by fanatical groups… the noise of an average wind turbine (standing directly under one is about 85decibels.. that’s the sound level of someone talking loudly in an open room.. I find it hard to believe that someone talking loudly voice, and “noise pollution” is going to travel 4,000ft and ruin your gardening experience…. next question I ask is where do you get your electricity from? I dunno about you but we are no longer using nuclear power (too dangerous, and where to dispose of spent fuelrods.. solar is too expensive to implement in our climate.. wave/tidal generators will hurt the fishies.. so where are we getting our power to heat/cool, and feed ourselves?
Scott if you don’t know what you are talking about you shouldn’t comment. One gas turbine power combined cycle power plant = 265 plus megawatts and “IF” the wind is blowing at the right speed it is going to take about 150 wind turbines to make 265 MW.
I can guarantee that gas turbine plants make noise – and have ugly exhaust stacks that have multiple strobe lights that can be seen for miles.
And those gas-fired plants can be shut down due to pipeline problems without warning. That is exactly what happened recently in Maine when problems in Cape Sable shut down all the gas-fired power plants in the state.
And – on days of high gas demand – ISO NE will shut down gas-fired power plants to shunt the gas to homes for heat.
No power for you.
I grew up in Maine mill towns where the mills howled and hissed and rumbled 24/7 – and they stunk – for miles.
And I guarantee that there are a lot of former mill towns in Maine that would love to have those noisy stinky mills back – and few would complain.
yessah
I directly challenge you on the noise comparison. I have stood on Saco Street in Westbrook on the side of the 540 MW Calpine gas fired plant and listened to the plant less than a quarter mile away and heard no noise. These several times were when the prevailing wind would carry the noise toward me. By contrast, I have visited four of the industrial wind sites and much further away, the sadly familiar roar that never goes away was definitely present, varying in degrees of annoyance.
I will take a highly efficient, reliable power source located on less than 100 acres in an industrial park any day over the sprawling, noisy, unreliable, unpredictable wind sites any day. Wind is bad economics, bad public policy, based on poor science.
Well – I walked up to the wind farm in Freedom and had to stand under the towers to hear the turbines on a windy day.
yessah
Hydro power is a better option. Large scale wind is not as efficient.
And…NO ONE…is taking into account the…VISUAL…detraction.
Gas,Hydro. You either make money from wind or you failed to educate your self
Actually, the environmental wackos own this state.
I don’t think people are stupid, people who come to buy from this farm will know that there is a wind farm next door, and will not stop coming to the farm because of “whooping”sounds. If the farm is putting out a good product, customers will still come. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy the b.s. That a wind farm will cause you too loose your farm!
Would you want to live and work in a town that has…FIFTY…of those things spinning very nearby. Let’s put the sound aside. Would you want to…SEE…them all the time?
The people of Oakfield voted for just that – sorry the democracy thing didn’t work out for you.
Do they know what they voted for? The First Wind proposal was only recently changed and upgraded.
I worked in Japan for several years, and was always impressed by the sight of their wind turbines on the coast. Then on a recent trip to Boston, I see that they have erected 2 turbines right in the heart of downtown. To me they are an engineering marvel, and a thing of beauty. They also say that we care about the environment, and are looking for diverse ways to generate electricity. Maybe you should visit West Virginia, where the ridgelines don’t have windmills, the ridgelines are gone. Bulldozed into the valleys to extract “America’s Clean Coal” all so you can turn your lights on.
I agree Hydro makes more sense, and is more reliable, but we have torn out most of the dams in the state to restore the rivers. What alternative do you prefer?
Rural Maine towns are not the best places for these things. Especially towns that rely on recreation. Proper placement of the wind farms is essential.
Energy conservation also needs to be part of the equation. People come to Maine to see wilderness, not turbines.
I agree completely, and the Passamaquoddy site on the abandon base is perfect. The Clifton site is far removed from all habitation, and more than 4,000′ from the original farm structures. I agree with you about conservation, but in the same breath you tout tourism impacts to the state. How do the tourists get here? by bicycle? No, they rely on petroleum fueled automobiles, and visit our hotels restuarants, and stores while they are here having a positive economic impact. Not much conservation there. I guess my beef is that we will gladly utilize power that despoils someone elses backyard, as long as it does not affect our own.
I don’t mean to “tout” tourism. Personally, I think Mainers can get along fine without large amounts of tourist activity. I’m not even against SOME of these turbine projects….IF they’re well placed…..and well thought out. As with most issues, the specific finer points (on an individual basis) are the problems to solve.
Wind energy is noisy, messy, expensive, disruptive, and the least likely solution to Maine’s energy problems. Sounds like something that the democrats would like. Yup, brought to you by Angus King and John Baldacci and democrats in the Maine senate and house. The man has no chance of winning his battle. Move away, democrats could care less about you or your farm.
I’m as “democrat” as they get. Don’t generalize. It’s a bad way to argue.
And I think large scale wind is a bad idea.
I wish there were more dems who felt as you do, but it’s true, though quite ironic, that it’s primarily the dem party who are responsible for embracing this wind power scam and ruining the landscape of rural Maine. After all of their talk about being green and the importance of our environment and republicans selling out to big business, who’d a thunk it would be the “progressives” who sold out OUR state to big wind?
Somehow, Maine dem politics turned a man whose ONLY private sector job experience was as a maitre’d for his moms restaurant into someone who’s qualified to be a wind energy consultant. No engineering education or expertise required, just political connections and a willingness to sell out OUR state to line his own pockets. Very sad.
Cell towers and power line ruined more Maine landscape than wind farms – strobes and all.
Are the anti-wind folks gonna give up their cell phones and electricity?
Nope
Of course anti-wind folks aren’t going to stop using cell phones and electricity any more than those who have embraced putting ugly, noisy towers on every hilltop across our state are going to stop using THEIR cell phones or electricity. Cell phone towers and power lines don’t make any noise and don’t swat birds out of the air, and are barely noticeable compared with huge structures on ridge lines that can be seen for miles. No particular polical party is responsible for the relatively benign power lines or cell towers the way dems are responsible for the presence of the wind farm blight on our rural landscape.
I do have to compliment you on choosing an appropriate disqus name to post under…..
Sorry: man-made (non-turbine) structures are a significant source of bird mortality – and power lines hum.
And I can guarantee you can see multiple strobing ugly cell towers from every hummock in southern Maine – for miles.
And our bucolic rural landscape was ruined a century ago when “ugly” power and telephone lines went in.
Do we even notice them today?
nope.
I personally think wind turbines are elegant structures and are fascinating to watch.
The “ugly” thing is highly subjective.
yessah
Cell towers don’t even approach the invasiveness of wind turbines. Those 50 turbines in Oakfield will be seen from the top of Katahdin…easily. What OTHER man-made structures are seen from the top of Katahdin…aside from the Millinocket mills…virtually NOTHING. That’s why Katahdin is the premier hike in the northeastern United States.
Cell towers aren’t 45 stories tall and they were all contrsucted with private investment, not with tax subsidies, PRS scams and mandates. Funny you should mention powerlines. If the buildout of the state’s goal for wind power by 2020 were to ever happen, there would be a spiderweb of more than 1,000 miles of new powerlines just to connect to the grid. Then there is the expensive ($1.4 billion) expansion of the trunk line to 345kv from Orrington to Elliot that is overbuilt just for the few days there are actually the right wind conditions to send a surge of power south, out of state. This expansion is being built only for wind power, which just adds to its outrageous high cost.
Cell towers are not nearly as large, or grouped so closely.
I think you’ll find a large number of democrats who are NOT in favor of large scale wind power. This will show in the upcoming referendum.
Sorry but you certainly fall in a tiny minority of your party.
Not really. This year’s referendum will prove that.
Sorry – wind power is cheaper than many sources of conventional electricity and displaces more expensive generators during periods of strong winds.
Republicans want greenhouse gases, acid rain, mercury and mountain top removal to support coal fired power plants.
and republicans want to make people pay $9 a month to build $10 billion nuclear power plants that will produce expensive electricity.
and republicans took nuclear spent fuel off the hands of nuclear plant owners and gave it to the taxpayers to take care of….we are all part owners in the spent fuel in Wiscasset.
republican corporate welfare at work.
yessah
Do you believe that mountaintop wind turbines in Maine will have any impact on mountaintop removal coal mining. If so, you might find that grid operator ISO New England disagrees with you. Perhaps you know something that they don’t?
I want wind farms – not coal-fired power plants – and the acid rain and mercury they rain down on my state.
And ISO NE disagrees with you – increasing wind power will displace fossil fuel power plants.
Why ? – cuz its cheaper
Did I say that wind power wouldn’t displace fossil fuels? I said that wind power in Maine wouldn’t replace coal-burning power plants. That statement is supported by the 2011 ISO New England Regional System Plan which says that New England’s coal plants will likely be replaced by natural gas fired generators, not wind turbines.
ISO New England’s Wind Integration Study states that mostly natural gas will be displaced by whatever wind power is available. Natural gas combustion emits no acid rain causing SO2 and no mercury. It does emit some nitrogen oxides, but at a fraction of the rate of oil or coal, neither of which is displaced to any significant degree by wind power in New England.
“cuz its cheaper” No. Because it’s mandated by law in the New England states’ renewable portfolio standards.
You cannot prove that statement about wind power being cheaper. Nor does it displace more expensive generators. It displaces no base load or baseload following generators in ISO planning for next day delivery because it is unpredictable and unreliable. Should wind enter the grid, yes it has to be used. The first generators that are throttled back are the hydro dams, as it is easiest to just divert river flow away from the turbines. Therefore, a no-emission, renewable source of electricity is what wind displaces. Yessah, you ought to learn more about how the grid actually operates before being such a wind zealot.
When gasoline is $10 to $20 PER gallon in 5 to 10 years, wind power will be a little more accepted… (Better electric cars will be available as well)…
Funny you say that, because I heard it takes fossil fuel to run some of them except in places like in Germany that power them by the electricty they make and the blades run slow motion.
No – it doesn’t take fossil fuel to run them in Germany.
Just the opposite – German utilities are asking to shut down 1000 MW worth of gas-fired power plant capacity because they cannot compete with cheaper wind power.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-30/statkraft-may-have-to-shut-two-power-plants-in-germany-ftd-says.html
Yessah
Actually, it has nothing to do with competition. Germany requires, by law, that wind be taken on the grid first. It doesn’t have anything to do with the competitiveness of natural gas or any other electricity source.
What a heinous mandate that is!
The “yessah” thing is annoying.
It has nothing to do with gasoline and in less than ten years it will be your Tax dollars used to scrap these wind mills
All the people that are fighting wind power need to wake up and smell the roses. The current source of fuel used to power electric turbines is fossil fuel. I dont know about these whiny idiots buts I’d much rather listen to 100 wind turbines than to choke on the pollution emitted by the current power plants. I wont even mention that every dollar we spend on fossil fuels is going into the pockets of countries like Iran that will use that money to try and destroy this country.
Do you all want to be at the mercy of 3rd world mentality controlling the fuel resources that we need to survive?
“every dollar we spend on fossil fuels is going into the pockets of countries like Iran that will use that money to try and destroy this country”
HUH? We get coal and natural gas from IRAN? I wasn’t aware of this.
Most of our imported oil comes from Canada. I wasn’t aware they were trying to destroy our country. I’m glad you’ve made this all more clear for me, though I think that the Canadians might be a little miffed that you’re labeling them a third world country.
Did you know that just 16% of all U.S. oil imports (46% of U.S. oil is imported) come from Persian Gulf countries? Also, for all intents and purposes, we really don’t use oil to generate electricity in New England.
You might want to reconsider your username.
You obviously have never been to western Canada where they produce “oil” from tar sands.
It is one of the most destructive means to produce energy on the planet – right up there with strip mines and mountain top removal for coal production.
and greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian tar sand production is a global-scale climate disaster.
yessah
Can you supply me with your references that confirm that wind power development in Maine will slow the development of tar sands in Canada?
I don’t mind debating with you, but please don’t attribute opinions to me independently.
I’m quite familiar actually with what is going on in Alberta and I think it is deplorable. I’m also a realist. Wind power development in Maine has virtually no link whatsoever to Canadian tar sands or mountaintop removal mining. I understand, though, how it does ideologically. But, ideology is far inferior to reality when it comes to making practical observations. And that’s all I did – make a practical observation.
The Alberta tar sand development will go on as long as the Canadian government and people allow it and as long as there are customers for it. China is already trying to buy an interest in the tar sands. You could cover every mountain ridge in Maine with wind turbines and it wouldn’t change that fact.
Again, I point out that we get the majority of our oil domestically. AND, the largest source of our imported oil is Canada, followed by Mexico. These are just facts, not opinions or positions. If you can make the jump that pointing out those facts somehow makes me a supporter of tar sand development, then I can’t really follow your logic.
Shows how ignorant you are about our electricity generation. Country-wide, the USA gets less than 2% of its electricity from oil fired plants We don’t buy oil from Iran, do you follow international affairs at all? Oil has nothing whatsoever to do with the wind turbine controversy in Maine. Regarding air pollution, retiring old coal plants and replacing with state of the art ga-fired plants is the cost effective way to maintain the base load and base load following demands of the electricity grid. In Maine, 100 turbines at 3 MW each at 25% capacity factor is only 75 MW of highly subsidized, unpredictable, unreliable electricity. If you want to ruin Maine by blasting away and leveling all the uplands for miles and miles of trubines, I suggest you ought to move to a highly industrialized area.
Your username pretty much invalidates your opinion.
There’s a lot of steamrolling going on here. Case in point…Oakfield’s proposed FIFTY turbine project. There should be information and reporting about EACH and EVERY wind project statewide. If it’s right, what is there to fear?
Towns need to be proactive about setting up wind ordinances.
The Town of Oakfield voted to let that project proceed.
Open and transparent democracy.
Yessah
The process was completely corrupted when Worst Wind decided it had to be more greedy than the permit that was issued. That called for 34 turbines rated at 1.5MW each. They shipped those turbines out west and put pressure on the state DEP to approve an amended license that allows the Oakfield project to be 50 turbines rated at 3 MW each. The difference in these two project is huge, encompassing far greater footprint, more devastation, a wider impact (459 foot tall turbines, not 389 ft.), people in Island Falls being impacted. The complicity of Maine DEP is far greater culprit here than Worst Wind. Worst Wind is just greedy to reap as much ARRA money as they can before that taxpayer spigot gets turned off. The Maine DEP has done a tremendous dis-service to its citizens and the environment by not saying that this is an entirely different project and it must be subject to a complete review, including citizen participation, on its own merits. When it comes to wind, DEP has become Department of Environmental DEVASTATION!
Transparent? I don’t think so. That project was only recently upgraded…AFTER the approval.
There are buyouts…and sellouts all over.
The environmentalists can’t have it both ways. They demand phasing out fossil fuels for these “green” energy sources but only support them if they’re on somebody else’s property. I can sympathize with the plight of this couple but trying to do an end-around the town’s zoning laws by building an unoccupied cabin isn’t the answer.
I think “environmentalists” and Mainers in general are not the largest part of the problem. In the 19th century we didn’t have ANY electricity…or petroleum use.
As George Carlin said, “It’s time to drop some of our needs.”
Money and corruption, Money, money, money. How sad for our beautiful State: and we will NOT see any worthwhile increase in electrical generation, and no decrease in electric bills. Only big, ugly noisy machines.
The electricity goes out of state, and we get stuck with the turbines.
Breaking news – wind turbines do not cause health problems
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/01/17/report-wind-turbines-don-cause-health-problems/bkC5kpl9JKPr4Fp67UUAOM/story.html
They should stand 4500 feet from the wind farm in Freedom and see if they hear the dreaded whoop whoop whoop.
I’ve done it and you can’t hear them 1000 feet away.
yessah
Have you ever work on one? They are loud and I would want to live near one. I work in the power industry and most of your comments are coming from what you read in the news paper. Let me tell you, alot of information you get from the new paper is false and anyone that works in the power industry will tell you they get alot of their information wrong.
I been up close and personal with wind turbines large and small in Maine and elsewhere.
Thanks for the conspiracy theory hoo-ha.
But, it is the anti-wind folks that put out the misinformation.
and I know better.
yessah
The wind industry has had a masterful propaganda campaign for years, preying on people’s desire to be “green”. The superficial thinking that leads to people supporting wind shows how poorly educated people are about both science and economics. Wind doesn’t pass the test for either.
That’s really not a correct interpretation of that report. Essentially, the panel – convened by a very pro-wind development administration – stated that they could find no DIRECT link in the literature between turbine noise and specific maladies. They did not undertake any type of actual epidemialogical study themselves.
They also did not deny that there could be a link between turbine noise and sleep disturbance. Chronic sleep disturbance can, of course, be related to various health issues.
In fact, the panel referenced a set of noise limits that it thought might be appropriate to protect against sleep disturbance. The limits they referenced are more restrictive than those currently in use in Maine.
I would encourage everyone to read the entire report, not just the headlines and abbreviated news bits written about it.
I also imagine there’s some corruption in these wind studies. Read DEP’s approval of the Oakfield project.
For 30 years the hippies have been screaming for wind and solar power…now it’s here and they don’t want it. Make up your minds!
An ineffective generalization.
LARGE SCALE…wind is the problem.
In California, there is a development of wind farms that covers mile’s and mile off of the 505. It has been there for more than 20 years. Housing has BUILT UP around it and no one complained and hasn’t. Why? They have affordable energy to heat or cool their homes. It’s clean, renewable,sustainable, doesn’t pollute, so why so much BS here? You can’t have affordable clean energy without giving up something. Do you want to pay $4+ for a gallon of dirty,smelly oil? Or have a fan who is about as loud as my grandfather talks to give you power
Ever been to Palm Springs, CA? There are hundreds of tubines in that area. And…over 100 golf courses.
One of the ugliest places I know of.
The Beckford’s are not the only people of Maine that are victims of industrial wind. The towns and land owners make their contracts at least two years in advance, along with the conservation compensation that has to be paid to the town. Then we get into the tax money, which the town would collect, which by the way usually isn’t enough to compensate million dollar projects, and then there are the broken promises made by the developer. The Beckford’s have a right to claim their quality of life, peace on earth and protect what they have worked so hard to create. They’re not willing to accept the lies and turn their backs to a project that will devastate their lives and the towns people. Wind industry sneaks in with the support of nature conservancies, looking for the promised almighty dollar, closes their eyes to the introduction of herbicides, stripping of the land of trees for logs and the contaminated runoff to the water ways, just for the almighty dollar. Why should the Beckford’s be pushed into a corner, forced to file lawsuit,allow the contamination of herbicides, pesticides, to their land and water and forced to relocate, relocate?
Save the Beckford’s quality of life. It is time for Mainer’s to support the Beckford’s Appeal to this project. Give these good people a chance to save their quality of life.
The DEP permits those nasty old wind farms – just where is this herbicide/pesticide erosion/runoff apocalypse taking place?
And where is the evidence that the Beckfords will be exposed to herbicides from that wind farm?
If you have it – produce it.
Furthermore – there are thousands of acres of clear cuts in Maine – many many times more than the acreage of Maine’s proposed wind farms.
try again.
Bayroot, LLC goes hand in hand with the Spruce Mountain wind project in Woodstock, Maine. They said the turbines wouldn’t make noise and the trees would filter the sound if there was any. Bayroot has been clearing thousands of acres beginning when the wind project started its development. Bayroot is owned by the Yale investment fund, which backed the Roxbury wind project, after the citizens proved to the DEP that Angus King had not proven adequate financial backing, that project got slowed because of that factor.
Now the trees are gone and the sound is intrusive, not to mention the blade flicker. Maine needs to take the cap off hydro and let the energy market balance it’s self. If, Baldacci had left wind industry to be in the common market of energy, then we wouldn’t be destroying mountains for 25% capacity and monsters looking over our valleys. You need to ask yourself why wind power has favoritism and no strong regulations conserning this industry. I consider it Democratic political influence on our energy costs. It will come back to bite them.
Oh, concerning the herbicides, Spruce Mountain is posted with warnings of it’s usage.
How in the world is it fair that the setback measurement for these towers is NOT taken from the property line? Why should the Beckfords not have the enjoyment to every square foot of their land – they should give up this right so somebody can profit? Let the developer pay these folks for what they took from the Beckfords – but there probably isn’t any amount of money that would make up for what they are losing. My heart breaks for them – and shame on the Town for not writing an Ordinance that was just and fair.
munebaght has no idea what he or she is talking about. Do you have any thoughts of your own? or are you going to just keep finding clipping from different papers?
I know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’ve lived and worked in Denmark where first generation 50 kW Vestas wind turbines were ubiquitous.
They were noiseless – even on windy days. There were no piles of dead birds at the base of the towers. No one was walking around with tumors growing out of their noses – or whatever. And the citizens were not twitchin’ with fits on the ground due to “flicker”.
I go to the Common Ground Fair every year – they have a big Bergy wind turbine on the fair grounds – nobody notices it. It is noiseless. There were no piles of dead birds at the base of the tower. No one was walking around with tumors growing out of their noses – or whatever. And fair goers were not twitchin’ with fits on the ground due to “flicker”.
After the fair, I have driven over to Freedom to witness the alleged horrors of industrial wind.
You have to walk right up to the turbines hear them on a windy day. There were no piles of dead birds at the base of the towers. None of the neighbors were walking around with tumors growing out of their noses – or whatever. And none of them were twitchin’ with fits on the ground due to “flicker”.
There is no peer reviewed published medical evidence for adverse health effects from wind turbines.
None.
Been there – done it – know what I’m talking about.
yessah
So you do have an agenda. You work for Vestas or have some type of interest in vestas..
Nope – just an informed educated intelligent native.
yessah
You don’t sound very intelligent to me just very narrow minded.
Again. No one mentions the visual blight.
Your first mistake was to think you could judge sound from the base of a wind turbine. Fooled by the wind industry aren’t ya… The sound doesn’t go down, it goes out. Try finding a place a mile away and then see how it sounds. If, industrial wind turbines are so quiet, WHY DO I HAVE TO TOLERATE THE SOUND AT 1.2 MILES AWAY. BY YOUR EXPERIENCE, I SHOULD HEAR NOTHING. CALL ME NIMBY AND I WILL CALL YOU WINDY, BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED WHAT I HAVE TO LIVE WITH DAILY.
I would suggest that no one respond to munebaght’s low brow arguments. His only arguments are based on the same dozen or so news articles he trots out continuously that often have absolutley nothing to do with the argument being made or are newspaper articles fostered by the wind power lobby and are not based in scientific fact.
“Munebaght” is either somone who is being financially rewarded by these projects, an emplyee of one of the subcontractors, or most likely just an old fool with mnothing to do with his time who gets his jollies arguing in these comment columns. He draws his egomaniacal ‘power’ just from aggitating people. Ignore him as we’ve begun to do with “lifetime mainah”! They may very well be the same person using two different screen names ….. though “lifetime mainah” sometimes shows a small flash of intelligence, something that’s missing with “munebaght”. Don’t respond to his taunts and he’ll soon get tired of trying and will move on to aggrevate a different group of people on a different topic.
I win.
Yessah
NIMBY,again. As long as their mandates affect “the other guy” it is just the cost of “doing the right thing”. However, once they find themselves affected, they are amazed and outraged. How could these be? They always expect to be exempt from all their Green nonsense, that all the hype,distortions and out right lies will some how never directly affect them. It is almost that their mastery of higher order / critical thinking allows them membership into some “elite circle of those not affected. ” Of course the inevitable happens , and that’s when the foot stomping and screaming begins. N.I.M.B.Y!!!!!!
It is at this moment that I smile.
How much of northwestern Maine is unpopulated? How much of eastern Maine?
Find someplace that ISN’T a backyard.
I’m not hearing complaints about the Danforth turbines.
It’s all about good placement.
This guy makes me giggle a little inside.
Unless Pisgah Mountain LLC is going to buy special blades to go whoop, whoop , whoop Beckford is not going to hear noise from wind turbines 3/4 of a mile away. If there is a constant whooping the appropriate person to see would be a psychiatrist.