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

The wind knocked out of ME 

Credit:  By Kirsten Burbank, The Irregular, www.theirregular.com 30 March 2011 ~~

Maine is heading for impending disaster and it’s called, “cumulative impact.”

We as citizens need to make conscious and educated decisions NOW that protect our state’s unique assets and unparalleled “quality of place.”

If we don’t, industrial wind developers without concern (capitalizing on former Governor Baldacci’s expedited wind law which passed quietly in the legislature in 2008) will succeed in destroying our mountaintops here in Maine as they line their own pockets green.

Being robbed of their liberties, Mainers from all walks of life are experiencing a profound loss of individual wealth as grid-scale industrial wind facilities crop up all over this state. The equity citizens have earned in their homes and properties is at stake, along with the flawlessness of Maine’s scenic vistas and views, the health of habitat for our wildlife, including birds of prey, bats, deer, amphibians and other species, and the quality of the tranquility we’ve all come to enjoy here.

I am very concerned for the communities of Pleasant Ridge, Lexington Township and Highland Plantation in this current onslaught. It is hard to know where to help. Wounds in this land are gaping, everywhere. Greedy, corporate industrialists are moving in for the kill; organizations like Yale University and their $17 million dollar feel-good endowment, backing such developers as Highland Wind LLC, in the destruction of Maine’s finest assets.

“Welcome to Maine… Sorry We Ruined It,” is a slogan currently being considered for a bumper sticker, I understand. That’s appropriate.

Do you know what a clear night sky in all its star-studded glory looks like from the ground in one of Maine’s rural (and unprotected) unorganized territories? Meditate on that for a moment. That perfect and awesome expanse will cease to exist with cumulative impact, as towers and their red, flashing lights for miles and miles dominate this new landscape called “turbineland.”

In my travels now, when I scan the horizon, I realize that many of Maine’s majestic blue mountains and rolling foothills will become extinct in my lifetime. We have much work to do, archiving unspoiled vistas and recording wildlife in nature, before these treasures are replaced, and displaced. It is hard to imagine that man, here, could undo creation and the work of the glaciers of long ago; hollowing out mountain tops, collapsing forests, fishery systems and entire ecosystems —all for an efficiency factor of 22 percent or one fifth of capacity; the price we have already paid for the sacrificial Kibby Range.

I can hardly breathe when I envision the future; I consider these truths and I can’t see the stars through the trees. I have a funny feeling in my chest and it hurts.

I’ve had the wind knocked out of me.

Kirsten Burbank is a resident of Salem Township.

Source:  By Kirsten Burbank, The Irregular, www.theirregular.com 30 March 2011

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