ELLSWORTH, Maine — With support from a wind power company that is erecting 19 large commercial turbines in Township 16, Hancock County hopes to improve the wireless communications capabilities of the county’s emergency dispatch center by the end of the year.
As part of the approval of the wind farm by the state Land Use Regulation Commission, First Wind is required to help the county improve its emergency radio communications coverage. That could mean the Massachusetts-based company gives the county space on one of the three meteorological towers it plans to erect in the development site on Bull Hill, just east of the town of Eastbrook. In that case, First Wind would have its wind gauge equipment at the top of a 95-meter tower (about 300 feet tall), and the county would place its equipment about halfway up the structure. According to Renee Wellman, director of the county’s emergency communications center, the equipment would not have to be any higher than that to be effective.
But on Tuesday, while Wellman and First Wind Senior Land Manager Dave Fowler met with county commissioners, Wellman suggested that Bull Hill might not be the best location for another radio repeater. The western part of Hancock County might be in more need of improved radio capabilities, she suggested.
Fowler told Wellman and commissioners that First Wind would be willing to consider paying the county’s costs for renting tower space somewhere else. According to Wellman, such rental costs could be as little as $100 per month on a state-owned tower or several thousands dollars a month on a tower owned and operated by a cellphone company.
The preliminary “ballpark” cost of the new radio equipment the county would put up on a tower, Wellman said, is $12,000. The county could use either funds it receives from First Wind as part of the Bull Hill site’s tax increment finance district or funds First Wind pays into the county’s separate community benefit account to pay for the equipment. Other possible costs associated with operating and maintaining the transmission equipment, such as a generator in the event of a power failure, could be paid with funds from one of those two financial agreements between the county and First Wind.
Wellman, Fowler and commissioners agreed that Wellman would look into what kind of radio coverage might be possible from each of the three meteorological towers that First Wind plans to erect at the Bull Hill site before the county considers whether to put its radio equipment elsewhere.
Fowler said that, regardless of where the new radio equipment goes, the company expects to have “a couple hundred” workers at the Bull Hill location this summer as the site is prepared and then the 476-foot-tall turbines are erected and connected to nearby Bangor Hydro transmission lines.
Fowler said he expects groundwork in Township 16 to begin sometime this month. The turbines, which are being manufactured by international wind technology firm Vestas, will be delivered midsummer by boat to Searsport. From there, they will be transported by truck through Bangor and Brewer, first along routes 1A and 9 and then by Spectacle Pond Road in Osborn to the project site, he said.
The First Wind official said he expects the wind farm to be operating by this fall.
In other county news on Tuesday, commissioners approved the hire of Andrew Sankey of Gouldsboro as the county’s new emergency management agency director. Sankey, who has served as chairman of EMA’s local emergency planning committee, will replace outgoing director Ralph Pinkham, who is retiring at the end of the month. Sankey’s annual salary will be $49,000.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
The opportunity to piggy back some radio equipment onto a First Wind met tower does not in any way mitigate the horrendous destruction of the Bull Hill ridges by this sprawling industrial wind site. The 479 foot tall structures that the reporter glorifies in this piece will be clearly seen from Acadia National Park and from closer places Maine taxpayers have preserved, especially Schoodic Mountain. Maybe just once BDN could devote similar space to one of the multitude of negative issues regarding the folly of wind power and what a terrible company First Wind is instead of being its unquestioning advocate.
So you are opposed to the whole project. Fair enough. You seem to be taking BDN to task for not printing a story that denies any piggyback equipment existing on one of First Winds mitigates the existence of the towers and their purpose. Further you decry BDN for not devoting ink to the negative aspects of the overall project as perceived by you and if there is space mention the subject of the article, i.e. the piggyback equipment. Lastly you express your frustration that the reporters, editors, and editorial board of BDN are not your personal hobby horse that you can ride in ever decreasing circles until you meet yourself coming the other way. I do not know if BDN is an unquestioning advocate of big wind, I am comfortable labeling you as a relentless opponent of all aspects of the same. Paradoxically, on this subject, you are one big wind yourself.
I wish the Bangor Daily News and the other large papers in the state would provide more balanced coverage of the wind industry. For example, what’s up with the editorial decision that ZERO coverage has been given to the far more significant story about the Maine Public Advocate heavily criticizing First Wind last week. It can be read here and it is all available in the Maine PUC record:
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/first-wind-merger-faces-strong-headwinds-with-the-puc-1
Is this not huge news?
It is a story that could well determine that First Wind cannot merge (meaning it will be in dire financial straits) or it will merge and will continue in its nightmare plan to place a 500′ tall wind turbine on almost every hilltop in Aroostook County, all having to do with harvesting mammoth but ill conceived taxpayer-funded subsidies for an energy source that for all practical purposes simply does not work.
How misinformed the general public has become. Devastate our forests just because you want a tower. Now I’ve seen it all. If you want a tower for emergency signals then get a shovel and put it in yourself. This society has become a lazy and desperate bunch. You would at least think the counties can catch on.
First Wind is showing it’s desperation for making money any way they can. What needs to be known is that industrial wind towers interfere with Doppler radar, communication towers and leaves our communication towers vulnerable. Communication towers and industrial wind turbines should not be mixed. Industrial wind turbines can/will interrupt and break up signals.
Just another way to scam the people into allowing progress on what the public doesn’t know. I am left wondering how much money is being made by “adjustments” to communications towers, after the industrial wind turbines go up. Woodstock has seen many a contractor in for “adjustments” on Spruce Mountain. Just maybe, there’s a problem????
Could this be newsworthy, BDN?
Or are you censoring this Northeast Wind Holdings (First Wind)merger issue, of huge importance to this state and of significance to all Maine citizens, because you will , and have, openly published and supported First Wind by this release of information in this case, thereby allowing yourself to be directly used, or purposely involved in pushing this merger?
Don’t you think the state should know about one of the most important utility cases in decades, and the rule breaking that has been done by First Wind and others?
Please read carefully below, as the BDN is discussed.
(From transcribed minutes PUC Doc. 2011-170, Jan 25 , 2011)
MR. BUXTON: This is Tony Buxton on behalf of the Industrial Energy Consumer Group. Thank you, Mr. Examiner. The Industrial Energy Consumer Group strongly endorses the motion of the Public Advocate and the Public Advocate’s argument. Forty hours ago we, the IECG and I think many others, thought this case was ready for decision. And in that intervening time, there have — there has occurred what is either a remarkable set of coincidences or a deliberate, intentional, fully-orchestrated effort to lobby this Commission improperly in violation of the rules, in violation of the cases that Mr. Bryant cited, and in violation of the civil rules. It is with a lot of sadness that I say that because we all have long relationships, but we deal here with the law and with parties, and this is an extraordinary moment for the Commission.In adopting the NYNEX — the response to the NYNEX activities, the Commission said, quote, “It is clear that NYNEX attempted to conduct a substantial lobbying campaign designed to convince the Commission to adopt results other than those recommended by the Examiners’ Reports. A heavy-handed lobbying campaign involving people whom the party apparently believes to have more influence than the party itself or than the merits of its position is unreasonable and inappropriate and will not be tolerated.” And the question, therefore, here is whether what the Petitioners and others have done in this apparently coordinated effort will be tolerated.What we have before us is not only what was filed with the Commission, but also the fact that First Wind went to the media with a press release and caused a story to be written in the Bangor Daily News which we became aware of mid-afternoon yesterday when our computer systems picked it up. And I called the Bangor Daily News and asked where the story came from, and that’s where they told me the story came from. Now, this is not a coincidence. This did not happen with one hand not knowing what the other hand was doing and it’s not unlawful. It’s a Constitutional right to speak to the media. But taken in its context, I have an obligation as an officer of the court to tell you about it, and this Commission needs to take that kind of information into account.I’d also point out that the IECG and others sought to have this case fixed a long time ago. When we moved to dismiss, which the Commission may have properly denied, part of our argument was that the case put forward by the Petitioners was inadequate, that it did not deal with the issues that were at the heart, for example, of a 1996 report by the Commission to the legislature, their filing didn’t deal with horizontal and vertical market power adequately, and we asked to have the case corrected. We were fought very hard by the Petitioners and by others, and we lost. And so we went on with the case. And then we tried to bring in other witnesses by subpoena, and we all know what happened there and the one who came in was very helpful.We’ve made an effort as a party with an open mind to make this case work, and to have this kind of action taken by a party at the end because they were losing is simply intolerable. It makes a — I’m not even going to use the word. It makes this kind of proceeding into something other than a legal proceeding. And that’s wrong. We realize there’s a lot at stake for some people here, but we have a process for that to come forward and people are bound by what they say and what they do. And we are not only disappointed, we are shocked that this kind of thing could happen at this Commission. And we think the only remedy because of the taint in the Petitioners’ filing of incorporating comments that the Petitioner knew were not proper and those having gone to the Commission already, the only remedy is to require those to be rejected and to dismiss this case. If the parties want to go out and put together another deal and come back with another deal, that’s their privilege. But to reward them by changing this proceeding to somehow accommodate what they have done here is exactly the wrong thing to do. Thank you.”
BDN, you readily go for the Corporate Wind Company story, but avoid publishing the illegalities in this case?
The transcripts are public, do you think they are of interest and concern to Maine citizens after reading the above?