The nightmare is real. Fresh introduced comes LD 1810 An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force
This long complicated, nearly unreadable bill will:
1. Open all private Maine land to wind power transmission lines and towers for ocean-extracted electricity.
2. Open all Maine's state marine waters (within 3 miles of shore) to wind turbines by the thousands, in 30 year leases that will quickly centralize to ownership by global Big Energy.
Results? Legislators are being told to ignore the fine print of the bill and simply give big industry lasting control over Maine's coastal waters, and the right to force right of ways for their wind powerlines through all private property on the Maine mainland.
Some highlights (or lowlights) of the bill:
* Landowners will be required by law to allow erection of power transmission towers on their land and the clearing of powerline right of ways through their property, if this will facilitate the movement of electricity from nearshore windmills onto the Grid.
* Herring fishermen, scallopers and groundfishermen will effectively be forced out of 100s of square miles of state waters because of the extensive cables and bridle arrays used to move electricity and support and stabilize these mammoth turbine structures
* Lobstermen and other fixed gear fishermen will be forbidden to fish among the cables and bridles surrounding the towers, unless they sign releases exempting the wind industry from responsiblity for gear loss or vessel damage from entanglement.
* Windjammers will be told to try the Scylla and Charybdis CHallenge : schooners must race in the lanes between the rows of turbines waving their blades. One false tack and... off with your tops'ls!. Or they can abandon those waters for other places to bring tourists seeking natural Maine waters.
Tough luck, humpies, right whales and puffins: time for the Big Thrum to fill Maine waters and sea airs with the sound of wind-nappers de-energizing the local marine environment, kilowatt after kilowatt, till the local plankton lose their rhythm. If they can't dance, they won't be part of our evolution.
Did someone say birds? Bah! One of the first ocean areas believed to be targeted by the industry is the waters near Metinic Island in Penobscot bay. Half of Metinic is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and is considred nationally as an "Important Bird Area". Wind plantations near Metinic will thin out these migrants most efficiently.
Bottom Line:
If wind extraction technology and operation is subjected to the same standards of the state's conservation and environmental laws and regs as fishing gear, oil and coal plants and other industrial technology is, this discussion would be taking place before the Board of Environmental Protection, and every person in Maine who wanted to would be able to put his or her two cents in.
Instead LD 1810 EXEMPTS GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY FROM THESE BASIC ELEMENTS OF DEMOCRACY AND CONSERVATION. TELL YOUR LEGISLATOR TO REJECT IT.
Wind industry's promoters believe they have spread enough
DON'T LET 'EM If they aren't stopped now, this industry will leap onto Maine's bays and coves with nary a review of their impacts beyond the most comically cursory checklist.
Instead of land-rushing Maine's coastal waters with this terrifying LD 1810, let's learn from the mistakes Maine wind developers made on land, and figure out how not to make a mess off Maine's shores. Let the global corporations wait while coastal towns and ocean interests create ordinances and laws to protect themselves from the rapacious investors who are backing this invasion plan to the hilt
It amazes me that there is a big push for wind power for a greener earth, but what about the thousands upon thousands of birds that will be killed. The disrupted fishing grounds. The possible dilemma to the whales. The eyesore it will create along one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.
ReplyDeleteA land invasion of private property rights. We may as well go ahead and elect a King!