DIXFIELD, Maine — Anti-wind-power activist Fremont Tibbetts was escorted from Monday night’s selectmen’s meeting after a contentious exchange about putting another ordinance before voters.
The Dixfield resident said he wanted a guarantee from the board that it would allow another ordinance to go up for a vote if he and other anti-wind activists gathered enough signatures.
Selectmen said they could not guarantee they would do that.
Selectman Bob Withrow told him he had read his proposed ordinance.
“It’s an ordinance to prevent wind projects. And the town doesn’t have to have an ordinance,” he said.
“I say give the people the vote. We need an ordinance,” Tibbetts said. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“It’s your choice,” Chairman Steve Donahue said.
“I’d better be getting a lawyer,” Tibbetts responded.
“We’re not telling you to get a lawyer. You need to distribute your ordinance and give people a chance to read it,” Selectman Norine Clarke said.
Following about 40 minutes of sometimes-contentious words between Tibbetts and selectmen, police Chief Richard Pickett escorted Tibbetts out of the Town Office.
The question of whether to create a municipal wind ordinance was prompted by a planned industrial wind turbine project for the Colonel Holman Mountain ridgeline by Patriot Renewables LLC of Massachusetts.
Town Manager Eugene Skibitksy said Tuesday that the board has no responsibility to place another ordinance before townspeople because the last one was voted down at a town meeting. With that action, the town has agreed to follow the state Department of Environmental Protection regulations for wind development.
In other matters Monday, Clarke announced a search for someone to take over the leadership of the Outdoor Market Committee, which is the town’s largest community event. She has led the annual project for many years.
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NIMBY
Windmills sure beats the heck out of having entire mountains blown up
and shoved into valleys below to get out tons of coal, leaving complete
and utter devastation behind… or have you seen the alberta tar sands?
It looks like Mordor.
and then burning all this stuff is bad news. acidification, mercury, co2 greenhouse gasses, etc.
Be glad Maine doesn’t have vast coal deposits or tar sands…
and don’t worry, they’ll be coming for the water resources in Maine …. tar sands and fracking gas wells and big industrial agriculture requires a lot of fresh water and that’s starting to run low!
The future can’t come soon enough for some, and for others, they’d really like to go back to the good old days.
Maybe these “are” the good old days.
Pick your battles carefully.
We have ABSOLUTELY NO reason to desecrate Maine with useless wind turbines regardless of how anyone might feel about Appalachian coal mining. There is actual energy value to coal, but 25% capacity factor of wind turbines is doing nothing to offset any form of fossil fuel used for generating electricity. Nada. None whatsoever. It doesn’t provide base load or base load following electricity. When wind comes into the grid, it causes the easiest to ramp up and down form of generation to reduce its load to the grid—hydro, which just happens to also be renewable and gives no emissions. So it is not worth destroying our beautiful state and its natural resources just because some people hate coal mining.
…..Except that mountaintop windmills in Maine will do virtually nothing to stop coal mining or tar sand oil production. Those facts seem to be overlooked or avoided by those advocating mountaintop wind development in Maine.
It seems people think I advocate for one over the other. Not so. I advocate for the adoption of a drastically different lifestyle for as many people as possible as soon as possible. But im just sorta silly like that. I don’t care much for windmills or mountaintop removal or fracking… at least not at the pace and scale these pigs are running at now… it’s a peanut scramble for our resources. Liquidation. (I’m not getting rich off it, are you?) This is being done in order to now feed China’s rise to “developed nation” status. They can then have it all over on us in another 10 years, and we’re looking at third world nation status.
You imply windsprawl will stop mtn. top coal mining…that is not true. The US is exporting more coal than ever. How will you make them stop? Mainers are buying coal burning stoves , a lot of them lately. People will heat with what they can afford, and windsprawl will only increase prices. If misinformation is the crux of your case that Maine should have 2000 wind turbines blinking away into the night, I must respectfully disagree.
What I imply is people think windmills are bad, and that mountaintop removal or excavations of miles of tar sands is worse. You could have some sympathy for situations others are facing in this energy crisis. Imagine what it would be like to have apartment complex sized bulldozers coming your way, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. I don’t live a lifestyle that demands much energy. I am a vegetarian, I use around 350 kwh a month and I don’t drive. What do you do to reduce this incredible burden we are facing?
4000 turbines = 1 hydro
These turbines are taller than our mountains. Thousands of them. Thousands, as far as the eye sees.
I like what’s written on the white board in the background…
Anti-wind??……Did he get all offended when someone farted or something?
Seems to me that Tibbets should be running for selectman and then he can try to get an ordinance passed.
With increasing gas and fuel prices taking an especially hard toll on Mainers, I am one of those who favor any and all kinds of programs to increase our energy independence. I have heard the counter arguments and am not convinced that they outweigh our need for more energy. I do find however that the opponents often fit the mold of fanaticism and completely ignore the arguments and realities of wind power. Yes, there should be some improvements to the program (especially in providing energy to local and state residents), but the anti-wind guys should be working to improve the benefits of wind power to Mainers rather than banning all wind power.
Why don’t you get educated about how useless wind power is before making these outlandish statements. Nothing you cite is impacted in any way by the fickle trickle of wind power. Wind power is a scam that has a huge environmentally devastating footprint and is very destructive to our state.
I was first introduced to wind power in Devon, England about ten years ago. I initially thought it was “awsome”, that isn’t it great to get power free from the wind! But in the local pub, I asked the people how they felt about the turbines. I was taken aback by their replies. They despised them. They don’t produce enough electricity to pay for themselves. They are an ugly intrusion on the lovely rural landscape. They make so much noise that some people had to move and others are really bothered by the noise. They wouldn’t be there without huge government subsidies.
After returning to the states, I started reading up on wind power, going beyond the propaganda of the wind industry and their supporters. There is no good, sound scientific basis for these things. They will never produce enough electrcity to pay for themselves, nor offset any carbon or greenhouse gases more than their own substantial footprint. My conclusion, before the onslaught of industrial wind sites in my native state was this: Wind power is an enormous scam, perpetrated by remnants of Enron Wind—remember Enron? GE, hedge funds, and pandering politicians. Wind is totally useless. It is Bad economics, bad public policy, based on poor science.
It’s sad when citizens have to be escorted out of town meetings by a police officers. This action serves to illustrate the escalating level of frustration encountered by rural residents being told that they have to live with industrial wind. It’s baffling to me that the BDN would devote so much space to this incident, including a photograph, and none to what is transpiring between First Wind and the PUC, or in other places all over the US and Europe and the world regarding industrial wind developers and existing industrial sites. So much for objective reporting. Industrial wind is a mature technology that has been with us since the 70’s and has failed to produce or prove any of its sweeping (and tax payer funded) promises of national security. Ask the raptors, migratory birds and bats what they think about their air space being filled with spinning blades. Ask Spain how it likes renewables. Ask yourself why Iberdrola, the Spanish company who owns CMP, is HERE now, where wind subsides are still rich for the taking. Ask all the European countries if industrial wind has set them free from BIG OIL. Do your homework, people, before condemning someone else for doing his. Freemont, your son, who died to protect our constitutional freedoms, would be proud of you for what you are trying to do. I know I am.
Here we go again. Selectmen who have been wooed and enchanted by the wind industry, who see dollar signs instead of the well being of every resident of the town, saying no to a resident. Wonderful “democracy” we live in, isn’t it? To Mr. Tibbetts, you go get your petition signatures and present them to the selectmen and have as many of the signers show up with you as you can get. Show the selectmen that citizens have the fundamental right to petition their government.
Selectman Donahue stated that the town
could not gear the project to just five (5)
landowners and “torpedo” the whole project. Five people could not govern the
entire
town.
. Selectman Donahue agreed with
Selectman Clarke that four people was not a fair depiction of the town’s
wishes in
dictating if the project would go forward or not.They did their homework. Their ordinance would exclude any landowners 4000 feet away.In other words, the 300+ property owners with-in 2 miles from this project do not count.
c. Wind Ordinance – Patriot
Renewables: Tom Carroll, Project Coordinator
for Patriot Renewables, LLC, brought to the Board several concerns that
were
found by his lawyers regarding the proposed Wind Energy Facility Ordinance
for
the Town of Dixfield. The
ordinance was supposed to be neutral to development,
but it will become
impossible for any wind project to take place due to the
following:
• In the definition for a WEFU (Wind Energy Facility Unit), the
committee
included roads and power lines in the definition and required a
four
thousand (4,000’) foot set-back from any home which makes it
physically
impossible to do any project.
• The committee used a four thousand (4,000’) foot set-back to include
a
survey of wetlands. The State of Maine standard is a one hundred
twentyfive (125’) foot set-back, and Patriot Renewables does not own
property
four thousand (4,000’) feet from every turbine. The company cannot
be
responsible for surveying property they
do not own.
• The C-Weighted Standard for noise is written with 45-55 DBA
(Decipal
A-Weighted Scale) and is different than the C-Weighted Scale; the
CWeighted Scale has no standard.
Windsprawl has proven to be job security for lawyers, more so than any other occupation. The town officials had no right to do what they did and listened to the wind sharks. For shame.
.• On a motion from Mrs.
Harvey and a second from Mr. Gill, the Board voted unanimously to remove the
ballot question from the Special Town
Meeting ballot warrant.
The ballot removed stated: “Shall an ordinance
entitled WIND ENERGY FACILITY
ORDINANCE FOR THE TOWN
OF DIXFIELD as proposed by
the Dixfield Wind Ordinance Committee,
be enacted?”
It is the selectmen that should have been escorted out by police, and jailed for constitutional breaches!
Reintroduction of an ordinance is fully constitutional!
Mr. Tibbets is a Patriot of the highest order.
Give them hell Freemont!
Remember This
Tobacco at one time was declared non-deleterious to
ones health for years, by the tobacco lobby.
It was deemed that there was no
definitive peer research to claim that there was a connection to
cancer caused illness.
Opponents and sufferers of metastatic
illness suffered for years because of the lies perpetrated by the
industry.
Peer reviewed studies were denied to be
scientifically valid by the lobby.
Testifiers were squelched by legal
maneuvers, non-disclosure actions, squelch clauses and massive
financial opposition .
Significant facts and truthful research
were marginalized.
Now, many Wind Complex abutters must
vacate their properties for their health and well being.
The industry denies any health
impacts.Selectmen are influenced , sometime illegally, by bribes and offers.
Infra-sound noise is declared non-harmful.
The affected are marginalized.
They must suffer financial costs of
property loss.
They must fight a huge corporate structure against teams
of lawyers , supported by an inept selectmen, and biased DEP and
Health bureaucracy.
Settlements when made are under
non-disclosure clauses to avoid deleterious publicity to the
industry.
The opposition is called NIMBY and
delusional.
However , just as with the factual
connection that was made of tobacco to cancer, wind turbines will be
connected to health impacts and human damage if improperly placed.
Valid research does exist, but is denied.
The history of this kind of corporate abuse of power repeats itself,the truth is ignored.
Lies have a way of being overcome by the truth.
Patriots like Mr. Tibbetts never give in, Because….
They are Right!
The wind lawyers have targeted Dixfield. All the citizens need to know is that 17 lawsuits were settled in Mars Hill recently. That tells Mainers that these developers are not being truthful with their promises that turbines are quiet and nobody will notice them and they are so wonderful stopping wars, reducing foreign imports etc.,,ad nauseum. It is all BS. Dixfield, put an ordinance on the books that protects your citizens first. Tell the lawyers to go back to Portland in their gas guzzling SUVs and put the turbines in their own backyards.