Maine Woods defenders urge legislators to support LD 640 to require EIS of HQ /CMP cable plan

Standing  room only as Mainers flocked to inform the Legislature's Energy & Natural Resources Committee of their support for  LD 640  To Require a Study of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions from the Proposed Central Maine Power Company Transmission Corridor

A small sampling from the speakers 

* Randall Parr  of Appleton  4minutes

* Nick Bennett NRCM  staff scientist  7min 46sec

*  Nick Bennet takes questions. 13min 31sec

* Fred Morrill of St George, 56 sec.

Offshore Wind Conference: Dec 14th Belfast

On Tuesday December 14th, 2010, the Island Institute will host the "Offshore Wind: Tools and Information for Coastal Stakeholders" conference. 

Topics are the standard fare for these events:

* "Maine's new offshore wind goals
 

* Critical factors that will impact the development of offshore wind
 

 * East Coast experiences with offshore wind siting
 

* Concepts and tools for evaluating ocean renewable energy projects

* Improving the community outreach and permitting process "

In this context, "improving the permitting process"  means weakening the environmental & conservation rules .  Island Institute, NRCM, CLF and a host of other eco-yuppy outfits have decided the War on Carbon's end justifies the means; laudably global in thinking but hideously impractical for the health of the wild Gulf of Maine.

Wind industry's "thirty pieces of silver" bill at Maine legislature. Listen.

Some here have wondered about what sort of economic benefits Vinalhaven and other Maine towns are gaining from becoming  “host communities” to the University of Maine’s wind turbine research operations. Will they be real or hollow promises?

Tuesday at the Maine Legislature,  there was a work session of the Utilities and Energy Committee on LD 1504, which has been renamed and entirely rewritten  as  “An Act to Provide Predictable Economic Benefits to Maine Communities that Host Wind Power Projects.” (copy not available)

Listen to the Utility & Energy Committee discuss the bill February 2, 2010 with Pete Didisheim of Natural Resources Council of Maine. (15 minute mp3)

This bill is a try at establishing a payout system to compensate Maine host communities for wind extraction-related degradation of their scenic and other natural assets by the sonic and visual pollution that is sometimes a byproduct of contemporary wind turbine technology.  Compensation is also being  considered for the no-go areas around and above wind farms set up for safety and security purposes.

Highlights of the worksession The Utilities and Energy committee’s staff policy analyst Lucia Nixon  said that  the re-written bill  “will specify community benefit agreements that windpower developers be required to have with host communities, and the nature and level of payments under those agreements, provide more specificity in the statutes regarding tangible benefits, and the documentation of those benefits.”

Nixon said the stakeholders (who are they?)  were tasked a week ago by the Committee to work together on a new bill version. They met last  Friday, and the Utilities and Energy Committee staffer has been reviewing these stakes’ drafts by email as late as noon Tuesday. (2/2/10)

Pete Didisheim of Natural Resources Council of Maine's Wind Program spoke briefly, but then spent a good bit of time responding to questions from legislators at the work session, as spokesman for the selected group of stakeholders who are hammering out the wording of the bill.  Pete told the committee that they’d come a long way in the last week but were “not quite there yet“.  He said the discussion group expects to be done by Tuesday February 9th and would  deliver something  “that  has the full support of the stakeholders and all the parties, and fully vetted through the agencies, the wind comunity and all the interested parties.”

At present, however, he admitted, there are “still a few issues. So rather than present it in its current form, we’d like  to bring you the final product. when we can walk  through it carefully and  describe exactly what we disagree on.”

 Representative David  Van Wie  had much to say to Pete. But he prefaced it with "I want to throw out a thought that hopefully won't cause people to wet their pants or set you back to zero or whatever."  

What was this thought  of Van Wie's risks ...um.....dampening the wind industry's enthusiasm?

"A wind production tax"  

One of those issues is who levies such a tax? The affected municipality? The state? Federal government?  “There’s quite a bit of concern, as you can imagine,” Pete said,  “about that potentially being siphoned off to…other areas.” 

So have NRCM and other stakeholders been talking to Vinalhaven people?  Monheganites?  Commiserating with the islanders over the loss of serene scenery and seaside silence?    Do the islanders feel “vetted”?

Windiness Jan 2010 at Maine Legislature's Energy Committee

Listen to NRCM, First Wind & others testify to and be questioned on LD 1504 An Act To Require That Expedited Wind Energy Development Projects Provide a Tangible Benefit to Maine Ratepayers in the Form of Discounts to Future Electric Rates by the Legislature's Utilities & Energy Committee.

AUDIO
Senator Mills Chief sponsor. Recording begins, hearing already in progress...
Dave Willby, First Wind
Pete Didisheim, NRCM
Jeremy Payne, Maine Renewable Energy Ass'n
Representative Adams
Representative Russell
Shawn Mahaney, CLF
Dick Davies, PUC Public Advocate
John Cooney, Reed and Reed. R&R's memo on tangible benefits

Question: Should  companies that "take"  the scenic beauty and audio soundscape of our state on behalf of their shareholders be required to provide a special benefit to Maine ratepayers? Industry says: no way!

LURC asks: Can Plum Creek build without polluting water? State Agencies: NO

Officials from three of Maine's resource agencies expressed doubt
Friday that the Plum Creek resort development proposal could be built
and operated without significantly degrading the region's environment.
Representatives of the Maine Natural Areas Program, Inland Fish and
Wildlife and Department of Environmental Protection testified and fielded questions at a public hearing of the Land Use Regulatory Commission.

The agencies were, like federal agencies US Fish and Wildlife Service and US EPA, turning out to be visibly reluctant to endorse Plum Creek's plans.

Representatives of NRCM, Maine Audubon and Native Forest Network and
other groups carried out cross examinations and testified at the
meeting.

Officials from IF&W said Plum Creeks proposed easement fails to
offset its resort and condo development, and recommended Plum Creek be barred from any development on the shoreline of Indian Pond and expressed concerns about development in deer yards around Burnham Pond.

The Maine Natural Areas Program told the Commissioners that Plum
Creek's plan won't adequately deal with potential exotic species impacts of both land and water resources.

Maine DEP Watershed Planner Jeff Dennis 287-7847 told the Land Use
Regulatory Commission Friday that Plum Creek's current rezoning
proposal could not be approved without significantly degrading the
water quality of Moosehead Lake and neighboring streams and ponds
within the proposed resorts and condos area.

Dennis said the would-be developer proposes to avoid polluting the
lakes, ponds and streams of the area using "thousand of buffer ones
that are being relied on to meet these standards."

Shown here speaking with NFN after the hearing, Dennison warned that unless carefully maintained, buffers will not carry out their functions. LURC and Plum Creek would have to come up with a strategy that would ensure each of the thousands of buffers be regularly inspected. "The challenge for LURC", Dennis noted, "is that this is scattered all over the landscape," adding that the extensive underground drainage system Plum Creek has proposed would also need regular maintenance to prevent from failing.

The Department's experience with other developers using buffers is
that not only are they frequently not maintained but "we know that
there are buffer violations," such as homeowners cutting down trees
in a buffer to improve the view from their vacation homes.

One LURC Commissioner noted that LURC had recently approved a 900
resort unit addition to Saddleback Mountain Resort in Rangely. Was
that a Class A water shed? he wondered. Given the information coming
from Maine DEP now, "I'm not sure why we voted to approve that."

NFN's Ron Huber cross-examined Plum Creek consultant Frederick
Kirchies, asking what sources he used to determine that there would
be no adverse impacts to the shallow waters near the shoreline of the
lakes and ponds within Plum Creek's development zone.

Kirchies, who had already acknowledged to an earlier cross-examiner
that much of the information he submitted was up to half a century
old, said he had not carried out any of the field work examining the
shallow waters, but had relied on verbal assurances from persons
familiar with the waterbodies to reach his conclusion that none of the
developments on any of the ponds or lakes would have any adverse
impacts at all.

"Nothing written? Nothing on the record?" Huber asked. Kirchies said
no. In response to queries from LURC, several state agency reps
suggested that the only way Plum Creek could avoid adversely
affecting the environment inside its development area would be by
allowing degradation of its proposed adjacent conservation areas.
This, it was noted would partly defeat the purpose of the
conservation areas.

The LURC Commission meets again to discuss the Plum Creek proposal on
Saturday in Greenville.

# # #