Other places in Maine suitable for wind farms would not involve destroying wilderness or decreasing tourist dollars.

This means that concerned citizens from all over the state who love our Maine mountains must make themselves aware of this outrageous proposal, as well as the larger question of uncontrolled wind power development and the damage it will cause.

I feel that your paper's endorsement of the wind project is based upon an incomplete understanding of its impact upon the western mountains' nature-based tourism.

My viewpoint was, and still is, that the huge towers (260 feet high), gigantic blades (add another 150 feet), blinking strobe lights, permanent removal of wind-hindering vegetation, and highly visible road and transmission infrastructures are totally inappropriate for wild, undeveloped, scenic and highly visible settings. And I said I thought that opponents should focus on those issues, as well as the small return in electricity for the massive public price paid, aesthetically and otherwise, and should perhaps stay away from the issue of bird mortality caused by the rapidly spinning blades. The jury is still out on that, I said, and conventional wisdom is that vastly more birds are killed by high-rise windows and free-running cats......Well, so much for conventional wisdom.

Editor's Note This opinion piece was written in response to a letter received from Lisa Linowes that is available via the link below.

The costs are “the loss of the mountains,” said Dr. Dain Trafton of Phillips, Maine, speaking for the friends group to the Original Irregular newspaper. “Is it worthwhile introducing this huge industrial plant into these beautiful mountains when, in fact, very little power will be produced, very few emissions will be avoided, and very little economic benefit will come to the area?”

Good winds coincide with neither the heating nor air-conditioning season. Wind is a willy-nilly source of electricity, and as such is not very useful.

And, while I agree with Mr. Shutkin that wind power, as a source of clean and renewable energy, should and will play a role in our future energy portfolio, its role will necessarily be small because of its fundamental limitation as an energy source: wind power is ‘intermittent’, i.e. it provides energy only when the wind blows, and, as such, wind power is a source of supplemental, not ‘base load’ energy.

Many of our politicians have run for office under the slogan, "Let's keep Maine, for Maine." If that is a true desire, then we should research these windmills much deeper. Call your state representative today. Let him or her know you care about what is happening, and you want more answers. There are too many holes in this process to let the windmills go ahead. Is this right for Maine? It certainly isn't right for me.