ELLSWORTH, Maine — Now that it has brought its new, 19-turbine Bull Hill Wind project online in eastern Hancock County, First Wind is looking to expand its presence nearby.
According to David Fowler, senior land manager for First Wind, the firm hopes to erect another 17 turbines in the area. Of those, another four turbines would go up in Township 16 and 13 more in Township 22, which abuts Township 16 to the north, he said.
Last week, the company announced it had completed installation and begun generating power with the 19 turbines erected on Bull and Heifer hills. The turbines, each 476 feet tall at the highest tip of their rotating blades, can generate up to 1.8 megawatts of power apiece, giving the overall project a maximum generating capacity of 34 megawatts.
The 17 additional turbines, pending approval by the state Land Use Planning Commission (formerly known as Land Use Regulation Commission) and Maine Department of Environmental Protection, each would be larger than the ones that just started generating power. According to Fowler, the new turbines each would have a blade coverage diameter of between 112 and 113 meters and would have a capacity of 3 megawatts. The ones now operating in Township 16 have blade coverage diameters of 100 meters.
How tall the proposed turbines would be, he added, is not yet known. They are expected to be more than 500 feet tall, he said, but exactly how tall they will be depends on which manufacturer is chosen to make the turbines.
Fowler said the new project, called Hancock Wind, could be built using the same logging roads that were used to transport turbines and other equipment to the Bull Hill site.
First Wind has collected enough data about the area’s wind resources that it doesn’t need to erect more meteorological test towers, according to Fowler. He said First Wind expects to submit applications to LUPC and DEP for the Hancock Wind project by the end of January 2013, if not sooner.
Fowler said that though the new turbines would be erected in unorganized territories, nearby towns stand to gain financially from Hancock Wind. He met last week with Osborn officials and told them First Wind is willing pay the town $4,000 a year for each of the turbines, if the project is approved. He said he has offered the same deal to the town of Waltham and may extend the offer to other nearby towns, too.
Wind farm developers are required by state law to pay out a minimum of $4,000 per turbine in community benefits funds to host or adjacent communities.
According to Samantha Depoy-Warren, spokeswoman for DEP, wind power developers “have some flexibility as to what their packages actually look like as long as they meet the minimum [payment], and some do go above and beyond.”
Fowler said First Wind is paying out $240,000 each year for 20 years in community benefit funds for the Bull Hill Wind project, well above the $76,000 that state law requires for the 19-turbine facility. Hancock County is getting $200,000 annually, while Eastbrook and the Downeast Salmon Federation each are getting $20,000 a year, he said.
In addition, Hancock County is receiving approximately $100,000 a year in annual tax payments from First Wind for the Bull Hill project, company officials have said.
Downeast Salmon Federation has to use its benefit funds in the watershed area where the Bull Hill turbines are located, Fowler said, but aside from that there is no restriction on how the money can be spent.
“Those are unrestricted funds,” he said.
Roger Waterman, chairman of the board of selectmen in Osborn, said Monday that voters at a special town meeting last week voted 19-0 to accept First Wind’s offer of $4,000 per turbine as a community benefit payment. He said that does not necessarily translate to how local residents feel about the proposed wind farm itself. Local sentiment about having 500-foot turbines overlooking Spectacle Pond is probably mixed, he said, but he’s not really sure.
If the project is approved and Osborn receives community benefit funds, he said, the town most likely would use it to reduce the annual tax burden for local property owners.
“That’s the fairest way to do it,” Waterman said.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
August 3rd, Bull Hill project deliberations
First Wind testifying in front of LURC
audio available at: http://www.maine.gov/doc/lupc/projects/windpower/firstwind/blue_sky_east_bullhill/BlueSkyEast.html
The following exchange took place between LURC Commissioner Ed Laverty and First Wind’s Attorney Kelly Boden of Verill Dana:
Commissioner Laverty:
“On page 24… the Bureau of Public Lands comment refers to the potential second phase of this project. Are you considering a second phase to this project?”
First Wind’s Kelly Boden:
“There is no Phase II planned.”
News Flash 11/19/12 Bangor Daily News:
“Now that it has brought its new, 19-turbine Bull Hill Wind project
online in eastern Hancock County, First Wind is looking to expand its
presence nearby.”
Mmmmmh.
Do you understand that it’s somewhat erroneous and off setting for a normal person to understand that you have quoted: One, commissioner’s question, and One answer. Ed Laverty is from Millinocket, he has no support , none whatsoever, of thermal or wind power. Then you continue on to New Flashes?……what is it that you want? Do you want the power distribution to be the same as it is, with it’s costs continually rising for every community? Or….is it that you want natural gas to pipe pipelines into every neighborhood until they hold a strangle hold on us , much like the oil company’s? When someone posts something such as this, I automatically ask myself…….hmmmm? What’s in it for him, that he wants to take away from others? You post these, carefully scripted references…..but yet you don’t directly comment on them as a resource. Why is that?
It is VERY CLEAR to me what streamweaver did in the posted comment. He demonstrated, with a factual reference, that First Wind LIES!!! The wind industry is built on lies and deceit and a corrupt system that keeps them propped up by overly generous subsidies and mandates.
Oh, I see, you need to depend upon another’s comment to validate YOUR argument. In the Maine State House, they call these types “wannabe weasels”….taking credit for someone else’s efforts. The wind industry is not built on “lies and deceit”…..Nor is it corrupt, if you want to talk about corrupt, let’s talk PUC and CMP, how about the oil that fires their generators? The PUC just got shot down …..for the second time…..for giving the HIGHEST bidder the E-911 contract. Subsidies and mandates? There is a PUC, only because, it (power and utilities) is so regulated and mandated. Nice try……but not really.
That is an asinine comment. I know what streamweaver said and you are the one denying it. I have reams and reams of notes on wind industry lies in the state of Maine. They lie, lie, lie in every presentation they make and it all started with Mars Hill. They should all be prosecuted and sent away. Unfortunately, the toothless media and pandering politicians have swallowed twenty years of wind industry propaganda so the industry gets away with their lies and deceit.
Why is it that there is absolutely no alternative energy available other than electric and natural gas? Don’t you find it peculiar that both the power and oil industries have invested heavily in natural gas? Don’t you have any problem at all, with cracking the ocean’s bottom’s (hence the earth’s crust) through fracking?
Don’t you find it odd how the existing power providers: power and oil industries are trying to corner this potential market? You ought not to stipulate how industrial propaganda in one industry (wind) is unethical, when CMP and the oil industry has done so since their beginnings. Every cost incurred by their ventures are passed on to the rate payers. TIF financing for natural gas implementation in towns and cities is nothing but a corporate subsidy, which eventually will raise property values, hence taxes. It also increases municipal expenditures for upkeep and safety. All of these want to create one thing: power.
So saying that “lies, lies, and lies,” in a technology that was used, long before the advent of generation of electrical currents is a bit naive. Neither have you explained to me why, the PUC seems to be pent up on awarding the internet capable 911 contract to the highest bidder.
So which part of the wind industry do you work for?
I stand by the fact that I shared.
But don’t believe me, listen to the official record. That’s why I provided the link. This is just one example of First Wind’s many lies under oath. And yet they continue to get away with it.
Rusjan, you ask what it is that I want? I want you to recognize that First Wind and their attorney have lied under oath to a State Commission!
Now, please cite for all of us the sources of your claims:
1) that without wind turbines power distribution will remain as it is,
2) that without wind turbines, transmission costs will continually rise for every community,
3) that the only alternative is for natural gas pipelines to be extended into “every neighborhood”,
4) that natural gas pipelines will strangle us, and
5) that the oil companies are strangling us.
Finally you ask why I don’t directly comment on my carefully scripted references as a resource. I wish I could answer but I can’t figure out what you’re asking.
I will let the legal record of the exchange between LURC and First Wind speak for itself.
First Wind lying? That’s not news. It’s just the way they do business.
First of all, I’m am not a fan of natural gas pipelines being extended into and throughout the state. Natural gas is in of itself, a dangerous creature. Dangerous for many reasons, the obvious, the economic, and environment.
You have mentioned LURC, which rises my curiousness. This is a board that is now moot. And throughout all of it’s years, LURC has had people “lie” to them. You cannot tell me any differently, so therefore, I would like to think that if wind power company’s are lying to the state of Maine, and you obviously discover it…..why didn’t they? They didn’t because they weren’t; during proposals and after, a company must say what LURC wants to hear. Any land use organization knows this. Therefore, and apparently, you have discovered something that the Commissioner’s never saw? I doubt that.
Maine is unique: 1/2 of its power is derived from renewable resources. Of that half, less than 5 percent of it is from wind. So therefore, you are talking about 1/2 of 1 percent of the power generated. And people are complaining? 1/2 of Maine’s power comes from alternative sources; guess where the entire other half comes from?……..Oil. Which is precarious and certainly contingent on many, many, thousands of factors. Strangling us?…who do you actually think is going to pay for the Gulf spill clean up?……..every consumer of BP products, don’t think for a minute that they won’t pass these costs on. Every time you purchase something plastic, you have paid an oil producer something. Have you ever seen any petroleum based product’s price go down in the last 2 decades? What makes you think that oil fired generators are any different?
Natural gas and it’s implementation depends upon subsidizing corporations. The TIF formula is inherently a tax sheltered subsidy. In simple terms it is this: you give a municipality the opportunity to reduce property taxes; but those savings are not going to the residents, these returns go to the natural gas corporation, who inturn installs the gas lines. Having that, the residents now face: an increased valuation of their properties, and more upkeep, maintenance, and fire and ERS response. If the gas company needs to upgrade something in the future…..guess where that cost is going to passed on??
All in all, the “legal” record of exchanges, compared to CMP and other utility providers….as they pertain to LURC, is relatively moot. It’s not like the way you portray it to be, nor is it the first time or the last it will occur, if it even did. Here’s my reference for your enjoyment. http://www.eia.gov/beta/state/?sid=ME
These thieves love to just hook more turbines onto the line, once they set their tentacles into an area. Stetson I begat Stetson II; Kibby Mt begat Kibby range begat Sisk Mt. First Wind expanded Oakfield from 34 to 50 turbines. Patriot Renewables is making an assault on every ridge along both sides of the upper Androscoggin Valley in Oxford County.
DEP must expand the interpretation of Scenic Resource of State or National Significance and be serious about the cumulative impact of so many huge turbines sprawling across and dominating a region. These thieves will continue, like vampires after blood, as long as taxpayer subsidies and arbitrary renewable energy mandates keep feeding them. They surely don’t give a damn about destroying our beautiful state and laugh at the locals who readily take the pittance of $4,000 like starving kids going for bread crumbs.
More pie in the sky, “investment in the future” drivel, from the heavily subsidized
greenies ruining this state.
“If the project is approved and Osborn receives community benefit funds, he said, the town most likely would use it to reduce the annual tax burden for local property owners.”
That will last about twenty minutes or until somebody figures out,….HEY we have
all this extra money, “let’s get a new fire truck Ebby.” Geezus what fools!
Here they go again! Pretty soon we won’t be able to walk around without bumping into the darn things. First wind is good at one thing. Messing up a beautiful state. Wake up people, Maine’s beauty and wilderness is going down the drain. Tourism will levitate toward Minnesota for wilderness because there is not much else left. Why does the DEP not listen to the local residents. It is all about money.
i am a little bit happy DEP does not listen to locals….small towns collect signatures and make a broad statement like.”I cannot attend this meeting but I am in favor of Wind mills on ——- Mountain.” sounds good,,,,,,no back-up statements……no sound judgement…..no ten year plan….Any public may state facts to DEP……but they need to be facts…
The area is mauled woodlands. Much rather see these turbines here than up north in the mountains of western Maine, despite the lower wind generating capacity. The irreversible impact on Mountains is too great.
I imagine people against wind energy have sold their trucks and SUVs and are living pretty close to the land, conserving energy.
This is mauled woodlands because of who owns them—HC Haynes, the most heavily fined timber company in the history of the state. But damaged forests regenerate and grow anew. Ridges and mountains that are blasted, scalped, and leveled are destroyed forever from the natural resource left behind by the retreating glaciers of the last ice age.
The irreversible impact on Mountains is too great also applies to the small mountains and high ridges of the northeastern part of the state, as these are interspersed with beautiful lakes and ponds and other environmentally rich wetlands. It is part of the unique natural tapestry of our beautiful state. Useless wind turbines do not belong here and there is not a single compelling reason why we should allow this travesty.
It cost .37 cents per KWH to produce wind power. Why would we want to produce more wind power when we have cheap natural gas to produce electricity?
The endless fact: FW gives out endless money until enough local citizens fold and accept money in exchange for the beauty and uniqueness of their homeland. Ask yourself how much money you’d need to give up the lifestyle and home you’ve worked for all your life and continue to live there.
First Wind cares not a hoot about any Mainers pocketbooks or health..wind is becoming more and more proven to be a fiasco that does not work in European countries that jumped on before us. WHY would Maine NOT repeal the expedited wind law and get wind turbines gone forever before they further ruin the lives of humans, destroy the habitat for our wildlife and kill birds and bats? They make no sense in a State that has always prided itself on its most important commodity..pure healing pristine nature.
so let’s get this straight,
the libs tear down the hydro dams claiming that it ruins the rivers.
then put up wind turbines that cost more, and are an obscene eyesore to the landscape.
logic fail.
Less than 2 % of the electricity in Maine and in the U.S. comes from oil-fired generators. It is the wind industry which wants citizens to believe that adding their undependable, intermittent, sprawling and expensive product will somehow lower our oil consumption. When there are affordable, reliable, long-range electric vehicles, perhaps then will Maine’s oil consumption decrease….but if that happens, we’ll need a vastly greater supply of electricity. And wind, no matter how
prolific it becomes in Maine, won’t be the source of any major addition to our
electricity supply—and it would still require back-up generation from reliable
sources.
Unfortunately, many citizens haven’t taken a good, hard look at the science and economics of large scale wind-generation. It’s much easier to believe the industry’s
claim that wind is ‘green’ and that it will counter the effects of global warming. Or that it is ‘free’, or it will ‘get us off foreign oil’. Heck, most people once believed those claims.
I know I did.
But an open mind and a desire to know the facts results in an valuable education. I
have followed this issue for many years and I have seen, first hand, how the
wind lobby lies and distorts the facts. I’ve witnessed in person how their representatives avoid answering direct questions, how they exaggerate numbers, and how they claim ‘proprietary information’ when they are asked to prove their claims. And those types of subterfuge aren’t the exception, they are the norm.
This isn’t an ‘oil or wind’ issue and as long as people continue to believe that wind has value because it’s the lesser of two evils, they will contribute to the sacrifice of much of what is special about this state. They will continue to support an industry which has proven it does not care about the health or well-being or quality of life of the people who actually have to live with massive turbines in their neighborhoods, or whose livelihoods and property values are negatively impacted.
We would do well to learn from the experiences and mistakes of countries which have been involved in large build-out of turbine facilities for far longer than we have. Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Spain… If you are interested in reading about their experiences and recent decisions regarding wind energy, I can direct you to some resources.
We must have reasonable conversations about this very important topic. It’s a critical issue and one which deserves thoughtful attention and citizen
involvement at every level.
Respectfully,
Karen Pease
Lexington Twp., Maine
Wrong………..40% of the power in the US is generated by fossil fuel plants.
Not even close http://www.powerscorecard.org/tech_detail.cfm?resource_id=8
Thank you for the link, and for being interested enough to
research this issue.
I’d like to direct you to this link at the U.S. Energy Information Administration website.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
As you can see, oil (petroleum) is attributed to 1% of U.S.
energy generation.
Even if your numbers were in the ballpark, the question would remain—how would wind generated energy off-set oil? Oil, coal, nuclear, natural gas… these generators would still be needed as back-up for the wind…all the while, still ‘burning’ so they could ramp up at a moment’s notice– but burning at less efficient levels [which means at higher pollution levels] for all those times when the wind didn’t blow, or when it blew too hard and too fast.
A hard look at the science of energy generation (and at the
costs) shows a different picture than what the wind industry so often touts as fact.
Respectfully,
Karen Pease
Lexington Twp., Maine
The cumulative impact of these industrial wind projects on Maine’s scenic viewsheds MUST be taken into consideration in a state that relies so heavily on tourism. If these projects are built out, they will have a visual impact on over twelve thousand square miles of some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States. People don’t come here to see what appears to be barbed wire and flashing red lights strung along our ridgelines and mountains. They don’t come to admire the big transmission lines snaking through our forests or the industrial roads scarring the hills. Our mountains are not renewable and they have an economic impact that has never been taken into consideration. Ten billion tourism dollars annually is nothing to sneeze at, nor are the 175,000 full time jobs that tourism provides. None of these industrial wind developers would be sniffing around these rural (poor) towns flashing their bribe money if they weren’t totally focused on our taxpayer subsidies. Take away that and they’d be gone with the wind. They’ve had over thirty years worth our money to prove how inefficient wind energy is, providing less than 2% of our energy needs. Enough is enough. An immediate state-wide moratorium should be enacted to give our legislature time to re-write a very, very bad expedited wind law.
Please tear these wind mills down NOW!
I enjoy our nation’s utter dependence upon Middle East oil. Really, who doesn’t?
Isn’t that just great?
We send those lunatics our money and they send us terrorists.
THAT is the way life should be.
Pfft.
be happy when china controls your precious metals….oh that is right…we can mine in Maine again soon. We can have big composite mills spewing out toxics on one end. all for technology…GRID scale WIND is using up too much precious metal and real estate to last much more than a thousand more turbines.
What’s your answer to the problem?
Crickets.
If the Government subsidies are discontinued due to severe budget cuts these “Wind Farm” companies will collapse like a house of cards. Same with the ethanol fuel programs. They are not cost effective, the investors have figured out how to make a bundle off the Government at the taxpayers expense. Unfortunately, this administration will be singing their praises and ramming through more money to sustain these projects.
Still waiting for MY electric bill to decrease. Changed to CFL’s that were to last 5 or more years and cost me so much less. I’ve already replaced most of them and many failed between 12-14 months. Yup, I believe EVERYTHING the Government is telling me.
No more turbines near Bull Hill. The cumulative impact is too severe. Why do the people accept 4ooo per turbine when other towns get 120,000 per turbine, as stated by D Wade of the AWEA? Do the people think so little of their area that they will accept peanuts? A Trans Canada official stated that wind power is not meant to replace baseload generation. So why are we allowing Maine to be plastered with industrial garbage? To make the developers rich? As for the argument about Middle East oil, if we never burned any oil we would still need oil for the thousands of other uses which are oil based. Besides, we get only 28% of our oil from the Middle East. Less is predicted for the future. We would still be defending the Strait of Hormuz for our allies, so please stop that foreign oil argument. To the wind supporters, how many turbines are acceptable to you? How much of our state are you willing to be covered with this junk? Do you ever go outside and appreciate the Maine outdoors? The salmon bribe should be rejected. We don’t need bribes reskinned as “community benefits.”