We congratulate all involved — county commissioners and the county Planning Department — for the county’s tall structure ordinance, which commissioners unanimously approved Monday night. As Lori Wynn says today in a front-page story, it took nine months of public hearings, multiple drafts and countless e-mails, but Carteret County finally has an ordinance regulating wind turbines and communication towers. ...While Progress Energy would have bought the power, that would not have mitigated any electricity to customers because wind is unpredictable and energy generated from industrial wind power can’t be stored so conventional energy sources would still be necessary.

With Byron voters rejecting Independence Wind's proposal for wind power, plans for 20 turbines in Roxbury are moving ahead, despite efforts from some townspeople to reverse approval of that project. Meanwhile, another company - First Wind - plans turbines for nearby Black Mountain and will hold a meeting Thursday night to provide information and, probably, to quell the inevitable protest. And, in a plot twist, Independence Wind has announced a "Power to the People" campaign. If the zoning needed for their turbines is approved and the turbines are built, they promise free electricity to all Roxbury residents.

This week, the state of Rhode Island selected a New Jersey-based company, Deepwater Wind, to finance and construct a 100-turbine windfarm between 15 and 20 miles off shore. The project is estimated to cost $1.5 billion. ...Maine's approach to wind power development - land and offshore - is different. Instead of directing the process, this state has allowed firms to develop their own plans. The process is slow and the results, so far, mixed. Site-by-site proposals from companies have resulted in uneven regulatory reviews and divergent opinions on its gains or drains.

After years of our begging the state to do something to bring clean industry and quality permanent jobs to the area, along with a highway, the governor has instead gone ahead and lowered environmental standards while using his bully pulpit to push an industry - wind power - that will irreversibly degrade the same "quality of place." Through federal subsidies and "double accelerated depreciation," we all pay for behemoth wind farms. As ratepayers of ISO New England, we will also pay for the needed transmission lines to southern New England. "Carbon credits" will be sold to polluters, enabling them to keep polluting. The electricity will be sold at a premium to the Boston-New York corridor. The profits of the venture will leave the state and the country, in the case of Portuguese-owned Horizon Wind Energy.

As chairman of Responsible Citizens for Responsible Energy (RCRE), our stand has never been to ban wind turbines from Carteret County. As our name implies, our main goal is to obtain responsible siting in the pending ordinance. It is our elected and appointed officials responsibility to protect the health, safety and welfare of the residents of Carteret County by adopting an ordinance which mandates a safe and responsible setback of wind turbines from neighboring homes and properties.

I would simply like simple answers to simple questions, i.e., what happens when the wind doesn't blow?; what happens when the wind blows too hard?; how many dirty power plants will be decommissioned as a result of embracing wind power?; how many projected new plants now on the books will be scrapped?; will the air over the Smoky Mountains become cleaner and clearer as a result of wind turbines?; will ozone alerts become fewer and farther between?; where are we going to put 300,000 wind turbines to meet the proposed goal of generating 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2025?

The wind turbine project for the mountains between Roxbury Pond and the Swift River in Roxbury is not suitable for the area. Environmental, health and quality of life impacts will be with area residents long after the wind turbines have been replaced with more reliable and efficient sources of power. People must always consider the environmental impact of any industry in the precious Maine woods and waters.

In my humble opinion when any organization actively pursuing wind power options, promoting legislation that would support those options and taking it upon themselves to define responsible siting criteria publishes a "model" ordinance, it's going to be an ordinance promoting the interest of wind production and wind producers. And what could have prompted the need for wind proponents to create their own model ordinance? Well, according to Brent Summerville, wind program manager at ASU's Energy Center, "Some wind ordinances have passed that are not favorable to utility scale wind development.

The Sun Journal editorial about T. Boone Pickens' wind power development (July 13) was right about the potential of wind power in the Great Plains states, but wrong about the feasibility of transmitting that power across the country to New England. ...While there is some wind potential in Aroostook and Washington Counties, there is less than most people seem to think. Many of the blueberry barren and potato farm field sites that were originally planned for development have proved to lack sufficiently strong winds to make turbines a good investment.

This task force abandoned the very idea of stewardship and capitulated to temporary commands of a very temporary administration. LURC has become foot soldiers for developers and surrendered the near-sacred trust placed in them by former legislators, and the people of Maine, who have a field of vision broader than what is either convenient or politically correct. It is lonely at the top of the mountain, standing against the tide of state policy, public opinion, public interest groups and deep pockets willing to exploit mountains as sacrificial areas in trades and arrangements to benefit their interests. LURC has made a bad decision. Generations from now will look back and shake their heads at these piles of metal and wonder why.

There is ample evidence America's future for wind energy is mainly on the plains, not atop its peaks. If so, projects like TransCanada's 132-megawatt windfarm in northern Franklin County is perhaps the last of its kind. Maybe it should be. ... Turbines at high altitude just seem to attract controversy. Contested wind power plans for peaks in Roxbury and Byron, Redington Pond Range and Black Nubble Mountain were all proposed for above 2,000 feet.

Kathryn Swegart's letter concerned former Gov. Angus King's proposal to research the feasibility to build 1,000 wind turbines 26 miles off the coast of Maine. Just wondering, has King lost his mind? The cost of $15 billion is astronomical and with the rising costs of steel, copper for windings, not to mention the maintenance cost being 26 miles off the coast. This is just plain nuts. ...The United States produces more power from geothermal energy than solar and wind combined. This type of power is definitely under-utilized. Wind power is not the answer; any expert in the power generation field will tell you that it's too intermittent. It's time to get real about our energy concerns in this state and explore all options but leave the crackpot ideas on the table.

What I want more than anything is for you to understand what the project will truly bring to the community. I am not judging whether it is right or wrong for Freedom, but there are answers that you need before you move forward. The residents who live the closest to the proposed site have legitimate concerns. Many in our town opposed the project in Mars Hill, but time and time again the arguments were dismissed. The developer had answers for most of the questions of concern, but other questions were avoided with the suggestion that they would be researched and answered later. ...Turbine noise can range from barely audible to a gentle whooshing, to a high range jet overhead, to a number of jets overhead, to a wailing thumping beast that you can't escape. ...Please, use caution as you decide what is best for your town. Remember to treat each other with respect. Each side is fighting for what they believe is their right. I know if the Town of Mars Hill had understood everything about the project that it would be different than it is today. What if it was your property and your home that were going to be affected? Most people don't think about it until it happens to them. I know I didn't.

We had heard about the windmills, but when we asked how they would affect us if we bought the land, the town manager told us we wouldn't even see them, much less hear them because they were going to be on the front of the mountain. We believed him. That was our biggest mistake. At the time, we had no idea that the town fathers had not even read the application that they had co-signed, nor hired a lawyer to explain it to them. They had no idea what they had agreed to. They believed everything UPC had told them. The biggest lie of all was that there would be no noise, or you had to be within 500 feet to hear anything. I believe that is still the propaganda.

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!

I highly recommend that you check out the "Task Force on Wind Power in Maine" Web site if you want to see an important aspect of Maine's future. Wind power appears to be Maine's next big, extractive industry. With goals of 2,000 megawatts of power by 2015 and 3,000 by 2020, that means a lot of wind towers, many where we live. Let's think about 2,000 MW for a moment. ...At 3 towers per mile these wind power goals would mean hundreds of miles of towers strung across Maine's ridges and if mountain ridges are a dominant feature of our skyline consider replacing that image with wind towers, which could be a nearly omnipresent part of our landscape. ...we must get rid of this feel-good-but-profoundly-misleading notion that these wind towers will somehow save the planet or Maine life as we know it. These and similar measures are far too little, too late to have a major impact on climate change.

My husband is gone now and his dream has become my nightmare because a company sweet-talked the town into approving a major industrial wind turbine project in our neighborhood. We paid for our home with our life's savings, and it was worth every penny. But it will be worth nothing if the noise of wind turbines takes the place of the street noise we left behind. Please, do your homework and educate yourself about what these turbines really are like. This isn't the sweet deal for the town that the company promised.

The town has already spent too much money fighting Ron Price's battles. If the town spends more money fighting the road issue on Ron Price's behalf, then place the blame where it belongs. The residents of Beaver Hill did not ask for this to happen to us. We feel that we are entitled to at least some protection, and that the town has largely ignored our concerns. If this project goes through, Freedom will have the distinction of being the only industrial wind turbine project ever carried out in the State of Maine without any standards whatsoever. Please vote yes to reinstate the Commercial Development Review Ordinance on June 10.

The millions of people who live south of Maine in the region from Boston to New York create huge demands for electricity. But because supplies are so limited, they have the highest power costs in America. ...Existing power lines running from central Maine to the south can't carry any greater peak load, either from within Maine or from our Canadian neighbors. As one economist put it, Maine is sandwiched between 6-cent power to our north and a 10-cent market to our south. That price gap is creating pressure to build a new $1 billion transmission line to move electricity from northern generators to southern customers.

The neighbors of the proposed wind turbine project in Freedom are asking the voters of Freedom to reinstate the Commercial Review Ordinance at the June referendum, retroactive to the date of the repeal. This is the only way to put some reasonable standards in force. When the town voted to repeal the ordinance last year, we were told the Planning Board would write a new one. That has not happened. ...Consequently, we have no protection from noise, ice throw, strobe effect, no safety setbacks, no standards of any type. These 400-foot turbines will be located only 350 feet from our property lines. We don't even have a fall zone, much less the safety setbacks recommended by turbine manufacturers.