LINCOLN, Maine — The state’s largest wind developer could face defeat for the first time in Maine with LURC’s decision Friday to deny a request to withdraw a proposed wind project on Bowers Mountain.
The Land Use Regulation Commission voted 5-0 at the Waterfront Event Center to reject First Wind subsidiary Champlain Wind’s request to withdraw its proposal to build a 27-turbine wind farm in a rural, sparsely populated area east of Springfield on the Penobscot and Washington county line. Commissioner Robert Dunphy abstained.
The vote leaves the commission free to act on an October staff recommendation to reject the project at a special meeting or at its next scheduled meeting on May 4, LURC staff director Samantha Horn Olsen said. She doubted that Champlain Wind could change the project enough by then to satisfy LURC’s requirements.
First Wind officials said they plan to submit a scaled-down proposal to build on Bowers Mountain later this year, but that didn’t stop project opponents from calling Friday’s decision a significant advance.
The opponents, who had objected to what they believed would be the Bowers Mountain project’s adverse visual impact on at least eight lakes and ponds within eight miles of the site — some considered “outstanding” natural resources by the state — were elated with LURC’s action.
“This shows the world that First Wind is not unstoppable,” said David Corrigan, a registered Maine Master Guide from Concord Township who opposed the project. “This shows that if they come forward with a bad project they can be denied. As far as I know, that has never happened before to this company.”
“I think the commission has done extremely well in its deliberations,” said Gordon Mott, a Lakeville resident who opposed the project and lives on Almanac Mountain within view of the proposed site. “The application is by no means dead. The applicant can resubmit it, so victory is the wrong word for this.”
“I think it is a significant advance in getting good terms for future developments both there [at Bowers] and in the state in general,” Mott added.
Attorney Juliet T. Browne, who represents Champlain Wind, said the company had taken several steps to answer LURC’s concerns. The company reduced the original number of site wind turbines and the project’s footprint. That increased the project’s cost, but Champlain remains committed to its agreement with host towns as part of a sincere effort to meet LURC’s vague visual impact standards, she said.
The project originally consisted of 27 turbines and carried a $130 million price tag, First Wind spokesman John Lamontagne said in a telephone interview after the meeting.
LURC’s process is lacking in significant ways, Browne said.
“The reality is that there hasn’t been a mechanism in this process for applicants to react to feedback” from commissioners, Browne said during Friday’s hearing. Allowing Champlain to withdraw the application, she said, would send an important message to developers that LURC would work with applicants in trying economic times.
It would create “an opportunity for applicants to come back with a project that meets your standard,” Browne said.
Kevin Gurall, president of the group Partnership for the Preservation of the Downeast Lakes Watershed, argued that LURC had already given Champlain ample time, including a 90-day extension, to revamp its plans.
Granting more extensions would effectively approve “procedural gamesmanship” that would “work to undermine the public process,” Gural said.
Commissioner Sally Farrand rejected the notion that First Wind or Champlain were anything other than “a straight broker,” but agreed with the project’s opponents.
“For us to allow this project to go on and on and on would make the citizens in effect partners in the business,” Farrand said.
Commissioner Edward Laverty agreed that the state’s visual impact standards needed work, but said they have existed for years and that Champlain had been lax in its follow-up of commission recommendations. Commission Chairwoman Gwen Hilton expressed satisfaction with opponents’ arguments that the project would mar the lakes region.
“I don’t see the value of extending the process and I think the applicant still has the opportunity to make substantial changes to the project and come back,” Commissioner Toby Hammond said.
Champlain will rework the proposal and submit it to LURC for review later this year, Lamontagne said.
“Our view is that the reconfigured proposal would have enough substantial revisions that it would address commission concerns enough for them to look favorably upon it,” he said.
Brad Blake, spokesman for the Citizens Task Force on Wind Power, congratulated LURC for its decision.
“We hope that this establishes a precedent,” Blake said, “that both LURC and Maine Department of Environmental Protection will start taking a more critical examination of all the issues pertaining to the cumulative effects of wind power site development throughout Maine.”
All wind power projects are supported with public money – what is wrong with that picture? Angus King, care to chime in?
ah ,, that would be king angus
First Wind is just the tip of the iceberg of problems with useless ripoff taxpayer robbing ratepayer fleecing wind power in Maine. Anyone care to read about their Baldacci crony Kurt Adams?
It’s all here:
Ex-PUC head enriched by utility company
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2010/04/21/politics/expuc-head-enriched-by-utility-company/
Group asks AG to probe official of First Wind
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2010/05/06/politics/group-asks-ag-to-probe-official-of-first-wind/
First Wind fixes filings on its VP
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2010/05/14/news/first-wind-fixes-filings-on-its-vp/
First Wind SEC filing change questioned
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2010/05/18/news/first-wind-sec-filing-change-questioned/
Adams investigation finds no conflict
http://www.sunjournal.com/state/story/856460
thank you pp
Hopefully, it will be the “first” of MANY defeats to come.
End government sponsored, taxpayer fleecing!
You can’t put a deck on a camp in the woods, because of LURC, yet they have allowed the distruction of montain tops for corporate welfare rip offs. I say it’s about time
Heads up Environmentalists .. All you need to know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw&feature=related
The following analysis using NRCM CO2 figures shows that even the tiniest fine-tuning of the Maine woods could sequester far more CO2 than all the useless wind turbines and required transmission scourge that NRCM advocates:
http://www.windtaskforce.org/page/nrcm-s-co2-analysis
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars do you think the wind industry has given to Maine’s environmental groups to purchase mercenarial advocacy?
And what about the fact that Browne’s husband Jon Hinck regularly supports wind by being on the Energy and Utilities Committee? He killed 13 citizen wind bills last year.
For anyone new to the fight, the following may be of interest on First Wind’s ties:
“A spokesman for First Wind, John Lamontagne, said that although the wind farms in Maine and New York for which his company received stimulus funds had already been completed, the money “will serve as a sort of stimulus for other, future projects.”
http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2009/09/clean-energy
and
“Another $115 million in funds for windmills went to a company called First Wind, which, I noted, had owners that included D.E. Shaw and Madison Dearborn Partners. Shaw is the firm at which President Obama’s chief of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, held a $5.2 million a year, one-day-a-week job, and Madison Dearborn is the firm of which Rahm Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff, said, “They’ve been not only supporters of mine, they’re friends of mine”.
http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2009/09/clean-energy-ii
Finally, First Wind’s tactics of trying to buy off rural Maine residents with their own tax dollars fails to impress. Thank You LURC and all those who helped expose this as an ill advised project. The message to First Wind is give up the subsidies if you want respect, stop spending millions on lobbying to get a free lunch, stop paying residents to get your way and tell the truth for a change. Lastly, put your industrial projects in an industrial area where they belong and not in close proximity to our precious wild waterways. If you do all this you may not have to continue buying off residents for support.
precious wild water ways….ice age eco systems……crack it wide open
We are finally seeing that all this huff and puff about wind power isn’t all it is cracked up to be. The cost to some of our pristine wilderness is not worth it.
Many thanks to LURC for standing up for Mainers and the Grand State of Maine!
Kevin Gurall, from the heart. thank you.
Gary campbell, thank you.
Thank you to all wind warriors past and present for enabling this victory.
This shall be the first of many victories against the wind scoundrels in Maine.
Education moves slowly, but now the momentum is there, the light is lit.
A Foul Wind has indeed been thwarted for now.
I am thankful tht LURC has decided to refrain temporarily from granting First Wind the oortunity to submit a revised permit AT THIS TIME, but I have lost faith in LURC and doubt the agency will stick with its decision.
I hear it’s not only First Wind’s first outright denial of a permit in Maine, but also within the other 4-5 states they have projects in across the country. You would think that when the testimonies from last summer’s two complete days of public hearings were over and 300 people testified and 91% were against this project, well, you’d think the developer would have had a clue. They’re just so used to getting everything they want in this state handed to them on a silver platter that they never took the threat seriously and were beaten by a group of everyday citizens with few funds and didn’t even have a lawyer.
A terrific job on this application by LURC. About 50 times more astute and more probing than the typical DEP project review. There will be a day when the children or grand children of the anti-LURC folks will look back and rue the day that they voted to more-or- less dismantle LURC’s authority. You will be missed by many. Great going today LURC.
Hopefully, this gives all the different wind power project opponents across the state hope and encouragement to fight on. Many of these projects have been, and still are, being poorly sited, this one was more aggregious than most.
LePage is not supportive of alternative methods of creating electricity so maybe that has something to do with LURC’s decision.
Governor LePage does not wish to cause ratepayers to pay high electricity rates that are totally avoidable. Nor does he support subsidizing any power source with taxpayer money. In protecting ratepayers and taxpayers, he is looking out for you and me.
Wind power happens to harm ratepayers and taxpayers financially, while at the same time harming Maine’s competitiveness, our tourism industry as well as our environment, people’s health and citizen rights.
His predecessor and cronies set up a law that rigged the game in favor of the special interests and against the people. That law was blown by a legislature that did not even debate it. That law was created by the special interests. That law now needs to be changed.
People before politics is not a feelgood idea as are the alternative energy scams.
That is a totally inaccurate statement. I know for a fact that our Governor is indeeed in favor of alternative methods of energy production ….just not the ones that are paid for almost entirely by tax payers and that create a mere trickle of electricity at extremely high costs. Do just a little bit of research before you make these totally false statements.
I really can’t speak for the Governor; but I’ll bet he doesn’t see any future in bio-fuels made from ‘pond scum’ at $ thirty bucks a gallon. I have seen a tape of barackodummer promoting and MANDATING the use of this product.
Maine does not need electricity right now but, Hydro is the best GREEN energy going.
Having followed this in great detail, I don’t remember any proposal put forth by FW to reduce the number of turbines or the footprint. They only asked to withdraw the permit AFTER LURC’s strawpoll vote to deny the application following a complete permitting process during which LURC bent over backwards to allow anything FW wanted.
This project was opposed by the Maine Professional Guides Association, the Maine Sporting Camp Owners Association, and the Grand Lake Stream Guides Association.
ppdlw.org for details
FirstWind tried to claim it is LURCs’ fault for not having exact criteria for determining scenic value. How does one put numbers on aesthetics? Impossible. Common sense might have suggested that previously existing high standards for scenic values were already in place and FW chose to ignor them. How else could the area have acquired the easements, protections and outright purchases to form the Downeast Lakes Watershed to protect the natural area in perpetuity? FW might have asked why 8 lakes were rated as 1A an 1B if they were not familiar with the area. FW chose instead to ignor the existing parameters and forge ahead with their INDUSTRIAL project. It proved their undoing. Will FW learn anything from this or will they continue to site turbines too close to 1A and 1B lakes? Oakfield is too close and that application should be withdrawn. The DEP and BEP should pay attention as Pleasant and Mattawamkeag Lakes are highly rated which has been ignored by the bureaus in charge. Passadumkeag Mtn. is threatened and Saponac Lake is right there with a full view of 14 proposed turbines. There will be nowhere on that lake without a view of windsprawl. That Pass. River canoe trip is well known like the Matt. River canoe trip. Both experiences will be diminished or ruined by carelessly sited wind turbines. West Lake and possibly Nicatous will be impacted. Preserved lands are nearby. Will these be ignored by developers or will they begin to consider the high value Maine places on her outdoor heritage?
King must not be a Maine Senator!!!
I agree! In case anyone reading the comments doesn’t know, King Angus was the principal owner of Independence Wind, which beuilt the Record Hill wind project in Roxbury. He has the biggest ego in the state of Maine and jumped in as soon as Sen. Snowe decided to not run again. Independence Wind’s guaranteed loan from the taxpayers is under investigation. King bailed from the company just before the investigation went public. Hmmm, me thinks there might have been some insider tip off.
King is a gifted speaker, but that hides his sleaze. Thank him for de-regulation of the electricity industry in Maine while he was Gov., which has led to sky high rates and the state’s utilities being owned by foreign companies. He is a supreme hypocrite. While Gov., he never missed a photo op or a sound bite opportunity to praise the beauty and quality of place for Maine. As the developer in Roxbury, he blasted away and leveled three mountains, detroyed the ambiance of beautiful Roxbury Pond, and erected ugly 45 story wind turbines that are an eyesore from the Mahoosucs Public Reserved Land, the Appalachian Trail (supposedly protected as an area of national scenic significance), the Tumbledown/Jackson Public Reserved Land, Mt. Blue State Park, the Mahoosuc Land Trust parcel on Rumford Whitecap, and Rte 17 designated State “Schenic Byway”.
All for being able to be a pig at the subsidy trough, Angus. But that wasn’t enough for your ego! You have to try to brainwash the lemmings in Maine into sending you to the Senate. You are in for a rough ride and you will wish you were riding around the USA in your RV at 10 mpg again.
Now here are two groups that deserve each other
What meforest said.
First Wind did NOT present a modified plan to LURC. Their written filing said they were working on something, and, in what seemed like a last minute desperate effort at the hearing, their attorney started mentioning all these things they were doing to make the project better. They have not made a single modification to the project. This is an incredibly special area and no matter what they do, the scenic impact to the lakes in question will be impossible to mitigate.
The heinous Expedited Wind Permitting statute makes the assumption that Maine MUST not only allow, but promote the industrialization of its mountains and uplands with little regard for the opinions of Maine citizens, with an uncivic process that is heavily weighted to the developer. Scenic value and natural resources, once held dear to many Mainers and highly touted by the “Quality of Place” concept have been so narrowly defined as to nearly disappear in this law.
To see LURC have a judicious process with meaningful hearings, to have the agency actually listen to the people, and to have the agency draw the line on the impact of huge wind turbines on these highest quality lakes, gives one hope that we may start to turn the corner on the trend by both LURC and DEP to simply rubber stamp wind power applications. Savor the moment, for as long as this law stands and there is subsidy money, REC sales, and Renewables mandates, the wind thieves will continue to relentlessly seek more projects.
Industrial wind is a scam and Maine does not deserve to become a turbine plantation. We need to continue working to stop the renewal of the Production Tax Credit. PL 661, the wind law in Maine must be repealed to end this favoritism to one industry that results in the ruination of the state for all others. We must get state after state to pull out of RGGI, for it is mandates like Connecticut’s 20% renewable sources of electricity by 2020 that will continue to fuel the proliferation of industrial wind sites. There won’t be a turbine built anywhere in CT, so where will they go? Maine. The Downeast Grand Lakes or Maine’s western mountains and all the ridges in between will never be safe from destruction unless we remove the elements that are driving the industrial wind scam.
Keep King out of Washington!!!
So, we have finally one wise decision in the face of the juggernaut of wind development that has been unleashed by the wind act from 2008. Industrial wind development is taking a heavy toll on our state, blasting away and leveling miles of ridges, fragmenting wildlife habitat, ruining people’s wellbeing if turbines are built too close, creating a hideous, out of scale blight across the landscape of the most beautiful state in the eastern USA.
What’s up next? The appeal of the horribly bungled and unfair arbitrary approval by DEP to allow First Wind—the same developer as this Bowers Mt. project—to completely change the permit for the project in Oakfield. With no due process for affected citizens, DEP has allowed First Wind to change the project from 34 turbines with 51 MW rated capacity to 50 turbines with 150 MW rated capacity. The size of the turbines increase from 389 ft to 459 ft tall, encompassing the destruction of a far greater footprint in the ridges above high value Pleasant Pond and Mattawamkeag Lake. This huge project will be the closest yet to iconic Mt. Katahdin.
In the same Grand Lakes region that LURC just decided to protect, Passadumkeag Mountain, the highest point between Cadillac Mt. in Acadia National Park and Mt. Katahdin, has an application coming forward for 14 turbines, each 489 ft tall. These will tower over the western end of the Downeast Grand Lakes and ruin two high quality lakes that the state has sought to protect through the Land for Maine’s Future Fund: Duck Lake and Nicatous Lake. These two lakes not only should be protected from industrial wind development for the same reasons as the Bowers Mt. decision, but also because wind turbines are totally anathema to the protections made possible by our tax money raised through LMF bonds.
The wind power thieves will relentlessly continue to seize every opportunity to drive turbines into the destroyed ridges as long as the taxpayer subsidies feed the beast. Folks in the northeast, your heritage is being ruined. Please get involved in stopping this onslaught of ugly, useless turbines. See http://www.windtaskforce for information and how to get involved. Let this LURC decision today be your inspiration!
Keep King out of Washington!!!
Payback time on a windmill is never…
They lie about how much electic power they will produce. And when the the federal money runs out they will abandon them..
Once up is there one employee watching over them or are they left to to their own demise??
citizens referendum
I always thought First Wind was something a baby did shortly after being born…..
Finally! Maybe now everyone can see that the wind farm proposals are just blowing smoke!
A common t-shirt in the Lincoln area has been, Kiss me where is Stinks. Lincoln Maine!
Those wind mills could have helped clear the foul air in Lincoln.
How?
I think that Jake is a vanity poster, he probably doesn’t get out much! He knows not what he writes.
What do you mean?
now DEP needs to listen..we had 704 signatures on our petition StopOakfieldWind and close to 100 letters begging them not to approve the Oakfield project, determined by 80 votes in Oakfield that were influenced by the wind companies and the town officials who were influenced to favor the project, that will greatly harm neighboring Island Falls, which has 3000 taxpayers and less than 800 residents..do the math. Do you think all those taxpayers know their lakes are going to be ruined forever if these turbines go up? that their birds and bats will be slaughtered? that their ridges will be topographically ruined? that the red lights will flood our pristine historic lakes? The comments by the “scenic specialist” Jim Palmer when the DEP rejected our requests and approved the project were ridiculously subjective. He admitted that people felt it would have a definite negative scenic impact but made the subjective, nonscientific decision that it would not harm that much..what doe that mean to people who have been living or coming here for generations, all this way north, made the trek, to enjoy the quiet and solitude of nature that Maine has to offer? Our home is within 8 miles of the project and in the National Historic Registry, a consideration in the application and the expedited wind law- the fact that we may not see them made it a mute point but we do use the lakes and have property there and that WILL be seen and HEARD. Our organization Protect-Our-Lakes is trying to do what they accomplished at Bowers yesterday. If we can fight as they did and be treated fairly and justly (which so far has not been the case in many of these cases) then we might save our lakes. Congratulations Bowers for working, fighting and setting a precedent. You give us hope.
Jerks don’t understand begging, only bullying.
do you have maine Guides? Lodges? Seems Corrigan told them about those businesses.
Just think, if LURC wasn’t there, this project probably would have sailed through by a local board. Those who hate windpower should be cheering. While those who think windpower is the wave of the future will now be on board with those who want to dismantle LURC.
No, if LURC didn’t exist, the application would have sailed on through under the DEP’s authority, not a local board. And if the DEP had been in charge, it wouldn’t have mattered what anyone in the community thought about the project, it simply would have been rubber-stamped in favor of the developer.
:0)
“Adverse Scenic Impact” DEP granted Patriot Renewables a permit for turbines atop Saddleback Ridge in Carthage. PR asked 22 hikers if the photosimulation of the ridge showing turbines would stop them from coming back to Mt. Blue to hike.
We all know those photo simulations look fake compared to the real thing.
The size of these urbines got bigger since the hiker survey.
I say 70,000 visitors to this park is more than chump change.
Let’s do a real survey this summer.
The state should put an accurately scaled photo simulation of the view with the proposed turbines up at Center Hill, along with information not only from the developer, but also from the citizens who are fighting the desecration of the magnificent mountain vistas. Do the same down at the Webb Lake portion of the park. Gather a real survey about visitors’ reactions when they are educated about this. A true sampling of the 70,000 visitors could set the standard for involving the public.
I attended a DEP public meeting March 22 in Canton about Canton Mountain Wind Project.
The purpose of the meeting was to ask questions of the permit process. But, it seems there were no answers.
Questions on Bald Eagles were deferred to DIFW. Questions on noise complaint protocol could not be answered.
The crowd heard interpetation of Maine laws by the lawyer representing Patriot Renewables, the developer.
Basically, the wind energy statutes are loosely interpeted and many definitions need to evolve. Such as the adverse scenic impact to Mt. Blue State Park. This park welcomes over 70,000 visitors a year, yet Patriot Renewables’ survey of 22 hikers is the only basis of determining “no adverse scenic impact.”
It is hard to get answers.
We can only hope that this is the start of a new attitude. It’s time to send a strong message to the parisites that want to profit from the huge “Green Agenda” give aways of taxpayers dollars. Anyone that has bothered to do a little research on thier own quickly learns that there is no up side to wind. It’s raises utility rates, wastes taxpayer money and destroys the quality of life wherever it is developed. If the wind industry spent as much money on newer technology as they do on litigation perhaps they would have a product that actually would work. Look at any project proposed and you’ll find any army of lawyers trying to intimidate local residents with the threat of costly lawsuits. It’s time to send them back where they came from.
We all want Maine to “take off”-we just don’t want hundreds of these ugly propellers to be the “power.”
First Wind attorney Juliet Browne: “…LURC’s vague visual impact standards.”
Vague? They’re the same wind siting visual standards the state has had for four years now. AND Attorney Browne was the Wind Task Force member who wrote the visual standards for wind turbines back in 2008, along with fellow Task Force member, David Wilby. Mr. Wilby now works for – any guesses? That’s right, First Wind. If the standards are vague, she has only to blame Mr. Wilby and herself.
Perhaps what she’s upset about is that LURC actually enforced the standards in the Bowers case. She knows the DEP never has and probably never will. My guess is, First Wind will wait and see how the LURC reformation legislation shakes out. If the DEP becomes the sole siting authority for wind developments in Maine, look for FW to resubmit essentially the same application and just have the DEP rubber-stamp it “approved.”
I think when a real survey of the users,( ie. 70,000 visitors to Mount Blue State Park,) is asked you might find the users love Maine’s night sky and ridge lines.
There was a “poll” that said %80 of the Maine population was in favor of wind power ?? It really shows here in this comment section how not true that was :-/
Nice to see the Land Use Regulation Commission is actually standing by the “rules” which was put into place by itself …
The big wind carpetbaggers are on the run. Finally, LURC is getting the message that big wind farms on our mountains are not the future of our energy needs.
Tourism and Maine’s natural beauty should be protected.
“Attorney Juliet T. Browne, who represents Champlain Wind, said the company had taken several steps to answer LURC’s concerns. The company reduced the original number of site wind turbines and the project’s footprint. ”
Total mischaracterization of the scenario. The applicant has taken NO steps to mitigate the issues, except for dangling a big wad of money in front of the Grand Lakes Guides Association if they’d drop their objection to the project.
They have not submitted any plans to reduce the number of turbines, the size, or their placement. That was the applicant’s attorney talking about what they MIGHT be able to do in the future. They were given an additional 90+ days back in October when they were faced with an eminent denial, but chose to do nothing in terms of reconfiguring the project, except to blame everyone but themselves for their failure.
It odd – many of those applauding this decision want to dismantle LURC.
Not sure where you get your information, but you’re way off base here. The overwhelming majority of the grid scale wind power opponents I know fully realize that at least with LURC they have an opportunity to present their arguments in a formal public hearing, and that most of the LURC commissioners do ask the tough probing questions that are necessary for a fair process, whereas the DEP has always done nothing more than rubber stamp every wind project they’ve ever had jurisdiction over. Affected citizens DO NOT get a fair shake with the DEP, period.
For the first time in most of your lives the Maine Government is trying to save you money; try to wrap your head around that.
They didn’t invite the taxpayers to the important meetings of the permitting process, They took our trees, our natural atmospheric filters and put up fans on these mountain tops to try and blow the Co around so we wouldn’t notice but yet they claim these fans to be generators? where is the juice?
I notice a whole bunch of people in here praising LURC for this decision. Have you noticed that the legislature is in the process of eviscerating LURC, to the delight of posters like msccv and Davidvsgoliath? Don’t expect the next crowd to be any more effective, if anything they’ll be more liable to being persuaded by large cash infusions into local pockets.
Couldn’t agree more.
“they’ll be more liable to being persuaded by large cash infusions into local pockets. ”
Exactly, what image comes to you mind when you hear the words “County Commissioner”. A man (or woman) with one hand out with the palm pointed to the sky!