GRAND FALLS TOWNSHIP, Maine — A Texas-based developer of a 14-turbine industrial wind-to-electricity site proposed for Passadumkeag Mountain will get more time to answer questions regarding its proposal, state officials said Friday.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that it had granted the request from Passadumkeag Windpark LLC, a subsidiary of Quantum Utility Generation of Texas, said James R. Beyer, a regional licensing and compliance manager with Maine DEP.
The company’s consultants emailed DEP officials on Tuesday seeking an extension on the DEP’s decision deadline from Aug. 30 to Oct. 5, said Samantha Depoy-Warren, DEP spokeswoman.
“That basically stops the clock until Oct. 5,” Depoy-Warren said Friday. “This is a decision made by the applicant.”
Brooke Barnes, a senior project manager with Stantec Consulting Services, which is advising Quantum on its proposal, said the commission would likely need more time to review the additional information the applicant needs to provide.
“I anticipate that the majority of additional information will be filed prior to September 15,” Barnes wrote in his email.
Depoy-Warren said several questions have been raised where “additional information would be useful to our review.” She did not elaborate. Barnes did not immediately return telephone messages left Friday.
The site’s turbines would be 459 feet from base to extended blade tip. Each turbine would generate 3 megawatts of electricity, according to the company’s proposal. Electricity would be collected in a 34.5-kilovolt line to run about 17 miles from Passadumkeag Ridge along Greenfield Road through Summit Township, Greenfield Township and Greenbush.
The project would include a substation in Greenbush and a connection to an existing 115-kilovolt transmission line on Greenbush Road.
Residents opposing the project and anti-wind-power advocates have dominated the DEP meetings devoted to the subject. They have said the project would blight the mountain landscape, reduce property values, severely damage the tourism-based businesses in the area, threaten wildlife and discomfit residents with the vibrations, noise and strobe lights the turbines would generate or use.
They also have raised the possibility of turbine malfunctions sparking forest fires.
Penobscot County commissioners delayed approving a tax break deal for the project, saying they wanted to see how DEP would handle the project.
The article says:
Depoy-Warren said several questions have been raised where “additional
information would be useful to our review.” She did not elaborate.
Gee, do you suppose this additional information will be made public in time for the public to make comments? Probably not.
And since when does the applicant get to set the permitting authority’s deadline? LURC did not allow First Wind to pull this kind of stunt, why should DEP?
Do you suppose if the citizens of Maine contacted DEP and asked them to put the project on hold because they have additional information to provide, do you think DEP would pause the process? I think not!
Aho must go!
The wind power developers always get their way, while the citizens get the (wind turbine) shaft! The problem is the wind law as well as Aho.
Will the 17 mile transmission line use wood poles treated with creosote?
Creosote is pentachlorophenol, better known as PCP, a suspected carcinogen. Creosote, is banned for sale to homeowners, but is still used on utility poles. Industrial grade creosote also contains the far more toxic chemical, known to cause cancer, dioxin.
Has anyone studied the effect of PCPs on the water, wildlife, and people that will be exposed to these 17 miles of creosote treated poles? The CDC says there is a danger in breathing the fumes, skin contact or ingestion. The smell (fumes) lasts for years. What, if anything, does the DEP say about this?
This company doesn’t need more time to answer questions. This company needs to DO THE RIGHT THING and abandon the project. Nobody wants this project to proceed. More than 100 citizens turned out to the DEP public comment meeting on a hot summer night, giving freely of their personal time to oppose this project in every aspect. We do not need the fickle trickle of unreliable, unpredictable wind generated electricity from this project. This company is only coming to Maine because it sees Maine as an easy entry to reaping taxpayer subsidies and selling Enron-inspired RECs. Stay in Taxas, Quantum, and leave this beautiful mountain alone!
Quantum, Do you know where you can GO!
Texas!
One Lincoln Rollins fiasco in this area is enough….
Citizens are now very cognizant of your game…..enough subsidy scamming and environmental and economic destruction has already been done here.
GO AWAY! (or be fought all the way to your defeat)
This Texas company is just taking advantage of Maine’s “Expedited Permitting” process, part of the heinous PL 661 that implemented Baldacci’s ill-conceived push for wind power development in a state where the on-shore wind potential is rated by NREL as poor to fair.
Across the valley from Passadumkeag Mt. is First Wind’s Rollins Project. The second quarter output of that project is 22.34% (FERC). Passadumkeag Mt. is no better wind resource. It is time for the DEP to scrutinize the cost-benefit of these horrible projects and challenge the assumptions of the law under which these applications for wind site development are presented. The next Legislature needs to appeal a law that has huge negative impacts.
Meanwhile, Quantum, pack your bags, saddle up your horse (s–t), and ride off into the Texas sunset. You are not welcome in Maine!
Hey, BDN and Nick Sambides, all these wind power projects are going in your area. Isn’t it about time you did a real investigative piece about what is behind this and the true impacts of this onslaught of ridge destruction? One of the common threads at the Greenbush meeting last month was citizens pleading to DEP Commissioner Aho to take into account the cumulative impact. This remote and beautiful part of the northeast should not be sacrificed for the fraud of wind power.
they gave us an extension for comments on our highly ranked lakes (by the Oakfield Project..these historic highly pristine lakes were ranked so by the the STATE which is now allowing their destruction)..only to rubber stamp that and have the BEP do the same..we need AHO out, the expedited wind law thrown out and have Maine return to the form it is known for and rich in before it is too late…
the more people are educated the less they want them…
Maine DEP insiders will privately admit that they have made serious mistakes in approving some past wind projects but the department has never disapproved a wind project, no matter how intrusive or destructive. Projects entirely without merit were approved solely through political influence and pressure.
The Passadumkeag Mountain project is yet another example of one that should not be built.
DEP’s decision on this application will at least serve to clarify for everyone just how much Baldacci administration corruption, if any, remains within this DEP.
BDN, how about writing a well researched and OBJECTIVE article about the highly controversial subject of industrial wind power here in Maine and its impact on rural citizens, including health concerns, scenic viewsheds, wildlife, environment and quality of life. Throw in an accurate cost/benefit analysis that studies the actual power being produced by existing industrial wind sites here in Maine (using real figures, not the developers glowing estimates and including line loss and the cost of the transmission upgrade to handle the wind power spurts) and an economic study of what the cumulative impact on our viewsheds would be (rough estimate: twelve thousand square miles) if all these projects are built out—-and how all this high elevation (highly visible) industrialization might impact Maine’s biggest economic engine, tourism. Just a suggestion. Your readers might appreciate being better informed.
I happen to know first hand that Stantec produces bogus documents for the wind industry. I saw it with their Groton Wind Project study on the peregrine
falcon.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8031983-proposed-wind-farm-imperils-falcons-other-threatened-species
Stantec has done the bogus, cut & paste studies for nearly every wind project in New England.
When asked, during the Lowell, Vt project hearings, whether he was concerned about the cumulative impact of wind projects on bird & bat mortality, Adam Gravel of Stantec replied in one word, “No”.
Currently the wind industry mortality
studies are deliberately designed/rigged with flawed methodology. Examples of
this flawed methodology include searching turbines that are not operating, by
looking in a small search areas around the turbines, by looking bodies every 15
or 30 days instead of looking every day, by not using dogs which could quickly
find every fallen bird or bat, by not counting the permanently disabled or
mortally wounded, and by allowing employees/lease holders to pick up
bodies.
This has been going on for decades with the blessings of the USFWS, which
has in place “Voluntary Guidelines” or “Do Nothing
Regulations” for the wind industry. It is long over due that the
Interior Department and USFWS to start doing the job they were meant to do
instead of running interference for the wind industry. The truth about
the propeller style wind turbine needs to be told because is having a
disastrous impact on birds and bats. It is time to stop the layers of
corruption in our society are hiding it.
I
have seen every conceivable argument and tidbit of propaganda justifying wind
energy from every corner of the world and there is one element that is nearly
always overlooked. Regardless of the energy source and the arguments, no one
should ever condone the fraud that has carried this industry for decades. I
know from all the wildlife studies and surveys I have read, that with this
industry, there never has been a level playing field and because of many layers
of corruption, wind industry mortality has been hidden. Take it from an expert
that doesn’t play the game, if the public insisted on proper mortality studies
at wind farms, they will find the results to be staggering.
As
far as I am concerned there will never be any viable solutions for problems in America,
with a system in place that rewards the criminals. That is because the best
ideas can and will be buried for decades. One of those ideas, is that we
should have killed the propeller style wind turbine long ago.
One would think that any politician would want to
separate themselves as far as possible from the corruption and devastating impacts
caused by the wind industry. I also believe that any politician that
opens their mouth in favor of the propeller style wind turbine, should be seen
for what they are, a mouth piece for the corrupt.
The wind industry has always and still is, slaughtering everything that flies, including eagles. The reason is because at every wind farm located in eagle habitat, you have the same deadly combination of circumstances, wind currents, prey species, soaring eagles, and huge blades hundreds of feet up ripping through the air. Golden eagles and Bald Eagles have to eat and they are smashed from the air at all these farms because they are forced to hunt around these turbines. So this country needs forget to the wind industry lies about Altamont because Altamont Pass just happens to be the scapegoat for an industry that slaughters eagles in all eagle habitats.
In a few short years the wind industry will be killing at least a 1000-1500 eagles
a year in the United States. This number will include several hundred bald eagles. Eagle populations will be decimated because they can not withstand this mortality and many of the industry’s planned projects lie in eagle habitat. Thousands of dead eagles have already gone unreported from an industry that has been hiding behind the bogus studies, the fraud, lies, and agency collusion, since the early 1980’s.
The citizens at the July 12th “Public Comment Meeting” of DEP not only stated their opinions against this project, they raised many questions. Perhaps DEP isasking many of these critical questions to Quantum. See my questions here: http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/passadumkeag-wind-will-the-questions-posed-here-get-answers