As a tourist who visits the area, I notice what is transparent to most locals, and for me the skyline of Fairhaven is priceless. If the citizens of Fairhaven allow the wind power project to be built at the current proposed location, I believe you will be making a terrible mistake. The town may gain some money in taxes and offset some electrical energy costs, but it will not offset the loss in green space and, more importantly, the beauty of Fairhaven's historic charm.

Wendy and Perrin Todd knew what would happen to their view of Mars Hill Mountain when crews starting erecting wind towers near their backyard. They braced themselves when their home, newly built on the north side of the mountain, shook because of the blasting. But what shocked them — and what they said this week they should not be expected to live with — is the noise. “They turned on tower Number 9, and almost immediately it made enough noise that it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that can’t be right,’” Wendy Todd said. “It all depends on the wind speed and direction, but the best way to describe it is you step outside and look up thinking there’s an airplane. It’s like a high-range jet, high-low roar, but with the windmills, there’s a sort of on and off ‘phfoop … phfoop … phfoop’ noise.”

It seems few in this town of about 1,500 people can agree on UPC Wind Management’s newly completed $85 million project, which makes the unassuming potato-growing and truck-brokerage community home to New England’s largest wind farm. But there’s one thing everybody can agree on: The place sure looks different. Long before a visitor arrives at Mars Hill, the towers become visible along what used to be just another mountain. The total height from the ground to the tip of the blade is 389 feet. Each tower has three blades, which spin in winds whipping west to east toward Canada just a few miles away.

New England Energy Alliance Survey Finds Consumer Concern about Future Electricity Supplies, Desire to Choose Electricity Supplier and Support for Addressing Global Warming

If New England's nuclear energy plants had to be replaced by other non-emitting sources of electricity to meet the RGGI goals, the region would be looking at large-scale wind projects, with weather-dependent output, spread over some 650,000 acres of land or water at a cost of more than $10 billion.

Politicians, scientists and policymakers seek to put Maine at the forefront of an energy revolution powered by world-class wind power blowing against the state's entire coast. The Ocean Energy Task Force, convened by Gov. John Baldacci, held its first meeting last week to begin the work of determining how the Atlantic Ocean might power homes, businesses and transportation in Maine and beyond.

Regarding the three-page petition, based on legal advice, Touchette said the board had to accept it. However, he added, the petition doesn't demand a revote of the March 3 town meeting ordinance amendment vote that OK'd the creation of a wind farm district. Essentially, the petition is a proposed land-use ordinance that seeks to ban wind power development in Roxbury as of March 3 until the town can create and adopt zoning and land-use ordinances. It requires planners to regulate wind power development "to minimize its deleterious effects on public health, safety and welfare." ..."We've also been advised to do a revote on the (March 3) ordinance, because there were a few gray areas involved," Touchette said. "We had a public informational meeting instead of a public hearing.

Two utilities on Tuesday proposed $1.9 billion worth of electric infrastructure improvements to ensure reliability of the existing power grid as well as to connect northern Maine to the New England power grid for the first time. ...A study has indicated that the existing power grid serving CMP customers will no longer operate reliably beyond 2012 without the improvements, Burns said. Meanwhile, residents of northern Maine have not enjoyed the potential fruits of electric deregulation because Maine Public Service Co. is not connected to the rest of the New England power grid.

The [land use regulation] commission will decide whether to accept a staff recommendation to reject Maine Mountain Power's proposal to put 30 wind turbines on Black Nubble Mountain and Redington Pond Range in Franklin County. At the same meeting, the commission will also decide whether to accept a staff recommendation to reopen the record to consider a much smaller version of he same project with 18 turbines on Black Nubble only.

FREEDOM -- Town officials are considering a 430-mile round trip bus ride to Hull, Mass., to get a better idea of what their town would look like with three wind turbines spinning on Beaver Ridge.

FREEDOM - A Portland-based energy broker wants to install three wind turbines on a ridge in this western Waldo County town that would provide enough electricity to power 2,000 houses.

So Price intends to build this project no matter how the town votes -- no surprise. Why shouldn't he be confident? After all, his uncle, Selectman Ron Price, is running the show. Wake up, folks, and see what's happening to our town. Don't believe their promise that three turbines is the end of it. CES would not buy up more land and run 10 miles of heavy duty transmission lines for just three turbines. Freedom has sold out for the faint hope of some tax dollars -- and it's just a hope. Franklin County has a tax agreement with the developer - - so did Mars Hill. Not Freedom!

The rejection of the proposed Redington wind power project will undoubtedly bring loud howls of pain from the project’s advocates. This is because the symbolism of wind turbines churning out electricity with no pollution and CO2 emissions is a powerful vision to us all. However, the issue that Maine Mountain Power and its supporters did not take into account is that there are some places in Maine where such mammoth facilities just do not belong.

The fate of a proposed wind tower project for Roxbury will be at stake at a special town meeting this June. Several citizens pressed the selectmen to have the special town meeting as soon as possible at a selectmen's meeting on May 8. On March 27, the Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury submitted a petition asking for a 180-day moratorium on the wind towers. The selectmen approved the petition on April 11. ...The town meeting will take place on June 17 at 6:30 p.m. at a site to be determined.

But, as Angus King knows too well, proclaiming Maine's potential for energy production through wind is easy to say, and near-impossible to achieve. Unless a project is sited in an out-of-the-way, unvisited, unremarkable corner of the state, potential for wind power has gone unrealized. Environmentalists bitterly disagree on projects, as do neighboring towns. King's own firm, Independence Wind, only earned a split decision for its turbine projects in Byron and Roxbury. Yet the state has designated Maine's rural towns as for expedited reviews of future wind power plans, in the interest of meeting lofty energy benchmarks. These forces are on an inevitable collision course. An offshore project would be a supernova.

Energy efficiency is by no means a permanent solution, but it should be a permanent part of the solution. Sensible energy use, combined with new power resources, is the only workable answer for New England.

If we really need "green power" so badly then we might as well rebuild the Edwards Dam across the Kennebec River in Augusta. Sound absurd? Well it is no more absurd than promoting industrial wind-power development in the protected mountain areas of Maine. The Land Use Regulation Commission created mountain protection areas above 2,700 feet in 1972 for the simple reason that industrial development was not environmentally acceptable in the fragile alpine and subalpine areas of the Maine mountains.

There are 18 families who live under a mile and downwind of the Mars Hill wind project who have been negatively impacted by these massive turbines. We all want for people to understand what is at stake when turbines move into your community. The 28, GE 1.5 megawatt turbines here in Mars Hill have destroyed a way of life that many have cherished for generations. It is an industrial facility that covers over 3 miles. It has destroyed wildlife habitat, breathtaking views, and property values. It has forever scarred the mountain. It has disturbed streams, ponds and wetlands. Safety issues with ice throw, risks of fire and tower collapse are all things that neighbors have to consider.

As consumers, we pay the full market price for wind-generated electricity plus the value of renewable energy credits mandated by the Legislature. As federal taxpayers, we donate another two cents per kWh, and support the fast depreciation (tax savings) allowed wind installation entrepreneurs. Mars Hill’s units produce 1 percent of Maine’s electricity and 0.01 percent of New England’s. The Kibby Mountain proposal of 44 three-MW units is projected to produce about .37 billion kWh per year. The number of kilowatt-hours supplied by the wind is very small. The combined output from Mars Hill and Kibby Mountain would be about 5 percent of Maine’s or .5 percent of the total New England grid. The real cost of wind energy, if broken out on our electric bill, would be a shock.

High atop some of the tallest mountains in Maine, a wind farm proposal has set the stage for a clash of environmental values that could define the future of wind power in Maine.