LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Maine mountain conference 

Maine’s mountains have become battlegrounds for developers, policymakers, activists and the public.

The 2006 Maine Mountain Conference provided a forum to air diverse and, at times, controversial points of view. Outside, the season’s first snow flurries, whipped by a harsh wind, swirled around Saddleback Mountain ski resort’s spacious new base lodge.

Elsa Sanborn, event organizer and treasurer of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, said that most of the attendees were from Maine.

“We have close to 200 registrations for the conference,” Sanborn said.

Many of the environmental, business, and government groups had clashed in the past about changes in allowable land use, and Saturday’s conference was a chance to see what progress had been made in the past 34 years.

The first Maine Mountain Conference was held in 1972. During that time, the newly formed Maine Land Use Regulation Commission prepared a comprehensive plan to protect the land and mountains in the unorganized territories. Many of the first conference attendees came to the 2006 conference with increased apprehension, as LURC is considering altering its zoning protections of mountain tops above 2,700 feet.

Conference sponsors, including the Western Maine Audubon Society, Friends of Baxter Sate Park, Friends of the Boundary Mountains, and Rangeley Lake Heritage Trust mingled with Maine guides, foresters, landscape contractors, and soil scientists.

David Rocque, a soil scientist with the Maine Department of Agriculture, explained how the different soil layers have been affected by pollution.

“I’m not saying what’s right or wrong, but if we’re going to build roads in the mountains, we should make sure we do it right,” he said.

Nearly all agreed that the issue of climate change needs to be addressed globally, nationally, and locally. Even large corporations like Wal-Mart realize their way of doing business can be affected if they don’t deal with environmental concerns, suggested one presenter.

“We want to keep those protections that have been in place since 1972 in the face of growing demands of wind power, mineral explorations and housing developments,” organizer Richard Fecteau said.

Those demands might include LURC’s approval of the application for a “wind farm,” submitted by Maine Mountain Windpower, LLC.

The project, proposed Harley Lee of Endless Energy, would erect 200-foot tall towers to generate electricity. His proposal includes rezoning two tracts in Redington Township from a protected mountain zone to a planned development subdistrict. If the rezoning application is approved, a construction permit would be required to erect 30 turbines on the ridge line along Redington Pond Range and Black Nubble Mountain.

Lee said that the $150 million project would remove 800,000 pounds of pollutants a day from existing power plants in New England, the equivalent of taking 26,000 cars off the road. It would include utility lines, a substation, maintenance facility and access roads.

By Valerie Tucker, Correspondent

kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon