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.

Short-term thinking on energy is going to cause some long-term problems Ask Paul Edmonds, vice president of National Semiconductor in South Portland. In August, he wrote in the Portland Press Herald, "An inefficient regulatory system and lack of long-term energy strategy are conspiring against Maine citizens and businesses." I was intrigued. So I called him. He told me, "High electricity costs are a threat to manufacturing competitiveness in Maine."

The romantic view of wind power is a stand of wind turbines atop a ridge gently spinning in a breeze generating clean electricity in place of an emission-producing power plant. Another view is a natural landscape defaced by huge structures whose operation annoys its neighbors, produces power randomly and does not reduce pollutants because fossil-fueled plants continue to operate as backup. The "pop" culture support and promotion of wind power is all based upon conceptual or theoretical constructs which do not reflect the physical, financial or regulatory realities of operating our electric grid system.

Let me get this straight. Central Maine Power is requesting a $1.4 billion upgrade of the transmission system from the Maine Public Utilities Commission. This transmission system will not benefit Maine because it is to increase transmission capacity between Orrington to the New Hampshire border right out of the state. I think that is about 125 miles. That's a pretty expensive project to take full advantage of wind power.

At the center of the back-and-forth between the Maine Public Utilities Commission and warring energy developers is a question of whether industrial-sized wind farms are feasible in Maine. ...The transmission line issue is not new to the PUC or to state and industry leaders who promote wind-power development in Maine. But it may come as a surprise to much of the public who see wind power as a clean form of energy that comes with little or no environmental cost.

"You begin to feel like you're being used," a long-time Maine Audubon supporter and state legislator told me about the wind power movement in Maine. "There seems to be no real benefit to the people or communities of Maine." What? We are being used? No benefit to the people of Maine?

Habib Dagher and Governor King make compelling arguments for offshore wind energy. However, I am very skeptical about the continued use of taxpayer money to fund energy experiments like ethanol and off shore wind. Off-shore wind energy, like ethanol before it, has the potential to gobble up billions in taxpayer money and provide very little in return.

Last week, the New England Governors' Conference raised green fantasy to new heights with the release of its Renewable Energy Blueprint, which said the region "has a significant quantity of untapped renewable resources, on the order of over 10,000 MW combined of on-shore and off-shore wind power potential." Neither the report nor the news articles about it bothered to do the math. At 7 MW, New England would need 1,429 E-126s to tap that potential. Though the turbines likely would be clustered in "farms," that's an average of 238 per state, or more than one for each town in Connecticut. The cost would be $221 billion that the states don't have, though they might get a bulk-purchase discount of a billion or two.

In a June 13 OpEd, "Maine power project will deliver," George Loehr, a consultant to Central Maine Power Co., argued that the $1.5 billion CMP has proposed to spend on its transmission grid is necessary to ensure that Maine's electric grid remains reliable. ...The point is whether or not spending $1.5 billion as CMP has proposed to spend it is a wise use of Maine ratepayer money.

Our work has shown that people in Mars Hill living within 3,500 feet of turbines there are truly suffering, in a real medical sense. Clearly, any regulation that results in placement of turbines, anywhere in Maine, at less than a 3,500-foot setback is courting a bad human outcome, regardless of sound modeling used by the industry to show there will be no ill effects in that range. As clearly demonstrated by post-construction measurements at Mars Hill, the model used by the wind industry for that project was seriously flawed.

Those of us who live close to power lines are concerned about the governor's and CMP's claims of the project's cleanness, greenness, price reliability and general value for Maine. We have met with the Lewiston City Council, our state legislators, attended hearings with the Maine Public Utilities Commission and tried to get CMP to listen to us. We are worried about our own backyards, but we are not interested in having the project simply moved to other people's neighborhoods. We want solution

Endless Energy's effort to put a wind farm on top of Redington Mountain near Carrabassett Valley is a bad idea that won't die the death it sorely needs. In fact, the idea seems to get worse all the time. Knocked down four times, twice by the Land Use Regulation Commission, once by the Governor's Wind Power Task Force, and once by the legislature in its 2008 Wind Power bill, this commercial creature is still on its feet however barely.

Today we are faced with many issues regarding the previous ecological misuse of our planet. In our mad dash to correct the maligning of our environment we are grasping at alternative sources of energy: mainly wind, solar and hydro. Wind power is the concern of this letter, and Harley Lee's project on the Redington Range is the center of that concern. I wonder if, in our rush to seek alternatives to foreign oil, we may be overlooking our most valuable local natural resources.

We think the Waldo County Commissioners should convene a high-level forum on wind energy and invite people from all over the area. That way, Freedom residents who have experience with turbines and those from other communities that may well decide to welcome them can confer with both experts and each other. The goal could be a countywide approach to wind energy, though that might be getting ahead of ourselves. After the talk is over, at least we'd all be on the same page.

Maine is a rural, relatively poor state. As such, we have become the target of multi-national corporations that seek to control our natural resources and direct them out of state. Nestle is continually expanding water mining into our communities. Plum Creek is trying to turn the Moosehead Lake region into a destination filled with high priced resorts and acreage for luxury home. Industrial wind farm corporations such as FirstWind and TransCanada seek to put turbines on ridgelines throughout the state.

Wind is the latest Maine resource whose value has been identified by outsiders. In the emerging post-petroleum economy, wind is valued for its potential to produce cheap electricity, and Maine's undeveloped ridge lands provide prime locations for towers and turbines. This has the potential to make businesses building those towers and turbines a lot of money. ...Measuring that benefit is a complex analysis, and difficult to explain.

What happened in Roxbury, though contentious, needed to happen. Community-changing projects cannot be built without debate, scrutiny or emotional outburst - it comes with the territory ...What should resonate from Roxbury into the ears of public officials and wind developers across Maine is this: Residents affected by wind projects care deeply about their communities and will fight doggedly to ensure their interests are heard and their demands met.

I encourage voters to vote "no" to these changes. By voting "no," voters will say "yes" to keeping these majestic mountains intact, placed there by Mother Nature, God, or whomever people believe had a hand in the Western mountains' design. Nothing is free. There are conditions to the free electricity offer. It is not nice to play with Mother Nature. Disrupting the mountains will plague lives forever.

The Maine Legislature has voted that there should be 3,000 megawatts (a megawatt equals a million watts) of wind power in Maine by 2020. That is something like voting for free ice cream. ...What the country and the state need is a long-range, comprehensive energy policy for the gradual but steady transition away from imported fossil fuels. If there is a magic word, it is "plan."