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Feb 18, 2010

The End of Lobstering? Big Wind twisting legislative arms to open ALL Maine saltwater to windmills

The DeepCWind Consortium  is a loose confederation of  entrepeneurs, general contractors, windmill companies, investment bankers, eco-yuppies, engineering firms and others, hunkered down around the multimillion dollar pile of stimulus money that got earmarked to Maine for wind energy R&D.
Listen to Jake Ward of the DeepCwind Consortium visiting Monhegan on Feb 16th describe the newstate  legislation  Click Here (2 minute mp3)

That's right. Representatives of the  DeepCwind Consortium  who came to Monhegan that day  to do a powerpoint presentation on their plans for a brace of R&D windmills off that fair isle, let slip the fact that there is a bill  being bandied about by the Maine legislature - but not yet "released" into public view- that would formally open ALL of Maine's territorial Sea to offshore wind extraction and tide extraction.
But they are restless. The state of Maine has granted them a measly 3,200 acres out of Maine's millions upon millions of  acres of  territorial coastal waters, to snatch wind from.  Filling the view off Monhegan (photo) won't be enough. More Monhegan views at risk . A mere appetizer! They hunger for more.

LOTS MORE

As you read this, the DeepCWind Consortium is busy in Augusta. That unholy choir is singing $weet nothing$ into the ears of  Maine legislative leaders, asking for nothing less than unbridled access to all of Maine's coastal waters.  






Trailing behind them - Canadian salmon farm interests, eager to fill in the spaces between wind turbines and tidecatchers with millions of their genetically engineered little darlings. Following them: feather collectors, for the great number of seabirds that will be attracted by the penned fish and by the wild fishes drawn to the giant floating wind and tide structures will have to fly the gauntlet of those blades as they dive on the fishes, and many shall sadly fail the blade-spotting challenge.

Just as Big Aquaculture tried (and failed, thanks to vigorous defense by small Not In My BaY groups, especially Friends of Blue Hill Bay and East Penobscot Bay Environmental Alliance), the burgeoning windpower industry will try to slowly force lobstering out, square mile by square mile, from wind-suitable Maine state waters. Divide and conquer being their usual tactic, expect Lobster Zone Councils to be pitted against each other. Expect attempts to pit the Down East Lobstermens' Association against the Maine Lobstermen's Association

Towns will be forced to accept "Community Benefit Agreements"  Lobstermen will be put on the PILL : "Payment In Lieu of Lobstering". Forced to give up their heritage "for the greater good" of the investors.  They will be pressured by paid-off ex-politicians, hand in cash-sticky hand with the sold-out "practical" enviros of Sierra Club, NRCM, Island Institute and the ENGO like, who, once the POWER money appeared, seem to have lost any qualms about throwing their friends in the fishing industry under the clean energy bus.


Can this be stopped?  Only if the Legislature's Utilities and Energy Committee sees the light. You can illuminate them by dropping a few words to the committee. Email your words to Kristen Gottlieb, the Committee's hardworking clerk, and ask her to distribute them to committee members.



Be brief and to the point: Opening up any of Maine's coastal waters to commercial wind extraction before any R&D is carried out in the small experimental locations already permitted would be foolishly,  dangerously premature.  


Tell them the industry wants to rush in and take leasehold possession of  100s of square miles of Maine's coastal waters, NOW, so they are grandfathered against responsible regulation is not yet close to completion -  as litigation presently before the court shows. 


Tell them not to allow fast talking energy entrepeneurs, investment bankers, and their surrogates to push through  legislatnio allowing such an outrageous Gulf of Maine-grab to happen

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:43 AM

    All of the coast is already legally open to windfarm development. You once again misconstrue the facts. If you have any readers, I hope they are not so naive as to believe your rantings.

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  2. Anonymous9:51 AM

    I can find no evidence of the DeepCwind Consortium working on this legislation. Why would you relate the two and try to tear down Maine's educational institutions? The R&D DeepCwind is proposing is important. Comments like yours just aren't helpful and are filled with outright lies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:55 AM

    Difficult to judge: are your rants from maliciousness or incompetency?

    Your agenda seems to be let the people of the state of Maine freeze (or pay exorbitant energy costs) and stay underemployed so you can enjoy a pseudo-pristine fantasy of Maine that never was.

    Maybe you are praying to your god that OPEC will just send you more oil as a Christmas present so you don't have to give up _your_ lifestyle, the rest of the state be damned.

    If you cared about lobstermen, you would be supporting projects that help islanders.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1:09 PM

    You are blatantly ignoring the interests of the islanders and are purposefully misrepresenting information. Wise up or shut up.

    ReplyDelete