Maine faces new 'Closing of the Commons'. State's fishery agency "caught with its pants down."

Wind industry-backed  bill would stimulate massive leasing of Maine's fish-rich nearshore coastal waters to energy companies. 

Augusta. Beleaguered Maine scallopers, groundfishermen and shrimp harvesters face financial ruin as a tiny state public lands agency looks to become a political powerhouse by leasing Maine's commercial fishing grounds  out from under them. Meanwhile, the state's marine resoruce agency is poised to shrug.

On Thursday March 11th , LD 1810 "An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force"  will come before the Maine legislature's Utilities and Energy Committee.   

The bill would authorize the Maine Department of Conservation's  Submerged Lands Program to: 

 * Offer 30 year wind energy leases of the state's submerged marine lands to wind energy industry  investors. Lobster grounds, scalloping zones, shrimp and urchin grounds, and cod spawning areas would all be opened  to windmill companies leasing by the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, which stands to gain millions of dollars in fees leasing thousands of acres of nearshore Maine waters. 

* Ban commercial fishing within the wind leases of any gear that wind industry insurers deem risky to wind farm's underwater cables and  structures.

* Allow wind companies to use eminent domain on shoreline and inland property owners to allow the industry to cut powerline and tower rights of way through private land  to connect the offshore developers to the national grid.


* Allows nearshore windfarms to degrade local scenic values without penalty or need to compensate other users for lost value.

* Forbid coastal towns from assessing property taxes on wind turbines or related equipment and facilities in the municipalities' waters tha are "below the mean low-water line on waters subject to tidal influence."

* Forbid Maine citizens from filing appeals of Maine DEP windmill project decisions to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection.

* Forbid the Maine Board of Environmental Protection from assuming jurisdiction over Maine Department of Protection windmill applications.

FISHERMENS'  FORUM FURY
While Maine Marine Resources chief George Lapointe has expressed dismay about the plan, he wants fishermen to weather the corporate storm by giving up fishing grounds. At the March 6th wind energy Seminar at the  Maine Fishermen's  Forum,  Commissioner Lapointe  noted  that the ocean wind industry in Europe  bans fishermen operating their boats and gear inside their 'exclusion zones', 



 "If their windfarm is 5 miles  by 5 miles, no fishermen are allowed in there." he said.

" It's a huge issue for their insurance companies," Lapointe said .  "You've got the structures  generating the wind connected by cables and then to shore. The impacts of gear on that is clearly a big issue."  

He suggested the developers interested in Maine waters will require the same. "We know that is a component," he said. "Prepare to share."

"The key is how we share." he told the roomful of grim-faced fishermen at the wind industry seminar, but then admitted "there's no direct compensation" [in the bill].

While admitting it was "an accelerated process"  Lapointe insisted the bill is "still going to give time for people to work on real issues ."

The panelists repeatedly declined, however, to answer a key question that arose among the stunned fishing industry and conservationists there: while the wind industry spoke glowingly of the megawatts of energy for Maine and the world,  how many turbines does the industry plan to install in Maine  coastal waters  to reach the state goal of  300 megawatts by 2020?  How many towers to reach the bill's  5,000 megawatt goal for 2030?

Tellingly, neither Lapointe  nor any of the other wind industry and agency people speaking at the seminar received a single clap of applause following their presentations.  This break from traditional civility at the Forum  reflected the mood of  fishermen who had just been shone maps superimposing enormous windfarm leasing areas over their traditional  shrimp, scallop and groundfishing areas. "DMR was really caught with its pants down," one meeting participant said.

Fishermen and grassroots environmentalists have appealed to the Legislature to either send the bill over to the Marine Resources Committee  and/or hold the bill over to next year or both..


"Let's hope Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree and other coastal legislators  stand up for their constituents, " one coastal activist said. " The Department of Conservation certainly won't.
 
In the meantime, they said. priorities should include developing model ordinances for coastal towns and attempting to have Maine's commercial fishing fleets delineate windmill siting areas acceptable to their industry. If there are any.    
                                                

"Most disturbing to me" one scalloper noted, " is the section on the Renewable Ocean Energy Trust.  Proceeds from offshore leases go into this trust and then are disbursed to the DMR for research and monitoring.  This will be millions of dollars put into an organization that is not trust-worthy, unresponsive to the needs and desires of traditional coastal communities, and a bureaucratic mess largely under the influence of the Federal government and private non-profits."

Nearshore wind proponents, skeptics at Maine Fishermen's Forum 3/6/10

Listen to the offshore wind proponents  at the 2010 Maine Fishermen's Forum roll out  LD 1810 a new bill that could open up all of Maine's fishing grounds to windfarms.  A skeptical crowd of fishermen listened gave NOBODY any applause. The Q&A  was cut short. Photos from the seminar

Introduction Dierdre Gilbert Maine DMR  2min

Beth Nagusky, MDEP Office of Innovation 13 min

George Lapointe, Department of Marine Resources  5 minutes

Des Fitzgerald, Principle Power 10 Minutes

Peter Hughes, Fishermen's Energy, New Jersey 12 minutes

Neal Pettigrew, University of Maine  on Monhegan R&D site 11 minutes

Addison Ames, Vinalhaven Electric Coop 10 min

Rob Snyder, Island Institute  10 minutes

LD 1810: bill opens all Maine state waters to wind farming; all private land to wind power transmission towers

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 bribes donations around the ENGOs and political class to get the legislators the desire and political cover to suspend Maine's environmental laws.

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

Isle au Haut - early settlers complain about taxes

The Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder, vol. 1 (Portland, Me.: S. M. Watson, 1884).

"The Great Isle Of Holt."

To The Honorable Senate And Honorable Representatives Of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts In General Court Assembled, 1802.

Humbly shews the subscribers, inhabitants of an Island belonging to said Commonwealth, known by the name of "Great Isle of Holt," that said Island is situated in Penobscot Bay, in the County of Hancock, and incorporated in the Town of Deer Isle, and we being desirous of having said Island secured to us by a permanent title pray your honors to take our situation into consideration and secure to us said Island by your grant, or in such way as you in your wisdom may think equitable. We therefore beg leave to state to your Honors the following facts:

1 That said Island is situate at least seven miles to the southward of Deer Isle, and a greater distance from any other island of any considerable bigness, and has no communication with said Deer Isle except by water which subjects your Petitioners to many inconveniences and wholly deprives them of any Town privileges.

2 A great part of said Island is very Poor land, being nothing but ledges of Rocks, or barren heath, and not fit for cultivation, which renders the remaining part of said Island of much less value than it would otherwise have been.

3 That the greater part of us have been settled on said Island a number of years, and have been burdened with heavy taxes to the State, County, and Town, and particularly to the Town to
which we have been taxed in large sums for building a house for Public Worship, and the support of ministers for which we have not nor ever can receive any advantage by reason of the great distance and inconvenience of crossing the water.

4 That we have no mills of any kind on said Island which subjects us to great expence and trouble in transporting our grain and lumber to suitable mills for grinding and sawing, with many other inconveniences which render our situation peculiarly difficult and unprofitable.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that said Island shall be granted to them or such part of it as you in your wisdom shall think fit, and in such manner that each of your Petitioners may receive the advantage of such improvements as they have made on said Island, and as in duty bound shall ever pray.

Pelatiah Barter, Robert Duglas, Nathan Robinson, Henry Barter, Solomon Kimball, George Kimball, Ebenezer Leland, George Robinson, Stephen Sawyer, Ebenezer Sawyer, Charles Kimpton,

Jonathan Calton, Jonathan Calton jr., Robert Barter, Rodger Barter, William Barter, Peter Gowlding, Asa Worster, Ebenezer Ball, William Ring, James Cooper, John Dow.

ACTUAL SETTLERS.

Pelatiah Barter, Henry Barter,       (1792) Robert Douglas, Alexander Nutter, Robert Barter,

Ebenezer Leland, Charles Kimpton, Jonathan Calton, Solomon Kimball, Ebenezer Sawyer.

Storm over Metinic! Windsters' invasion of outer Penobscot Bay imminent.

Metinic Island nightmare. Like sea slugs under the dank surface of Maine's Submerged Lands Program, a fell gathering of wind thieves hunkers down around a navigation chart of Penobscot Bay centered on Metinic Island.  

40 of what look like skull & crossbones symbols dot the waters around the island, midway between Saint George and Matinicus.  A closer look, and  one sees they are actually wind energy symbols: the feared "Tower & Crossbones".


The conspirators go down their checklist: "Politicians?"  "Check." "NGOs paid off?" "Sierra Club -check. Island Institute- check. NRCM- check. CLF-Check."  
"Cool. Fishermen?" 
"Sorry sir. The lobster associations aren't buying the no-impact argument." 
"Scallopers?"  
"Moved 'em out of the area already. Told them it was a conservation closure". (laughter)  
"Groundfishermen?"
 "Sir, nobody with mobile gear is going to like  our platforms and anchor lines closing off all of those square miles of the outer bay. But then, there's not that many left, anyway, sir. We'll marginalize them. "

They continue their plot against Metinic Island  


"Consultants?" 
"Yessir. The best biostitutes on the New England coast.  They want to know what results you want and how thick a report to prepare."                                                                                                      
"A foot thick should be fine. Be sure there are plenty of photographs of fishermen and their boats in it. We'll manufacture the illusion of consent if we must."                                                                                                


The conspiracy is enormous, if simpleminded.  The feds are dangling cash in front of  Maine's governor and legislature.  All they must do, they are told by Angus King and other sockpuppets for the wannabe energy tycoons of  Neptune Wind, First Wind and that whole greedy lot, is surrender Maine's  wallet and coastal waters to the fast tracking of subsidized industrial ocean wind development.  If the bill is passed, the windustrialists will  seek "wind waivers", exempting them from state  environmental law, as well as  Community Benefit Agreements that will forcibly require fishermen and others to trade their birthrights for federal gold. The windebeests plan to both figuratively and literally pluck the Bald Eagle, icon of our nation and of our coast.


One recognizes the ruthless realpolitik: If the DeepCwind plan for Monhegan is an attack on Beauty, the Neptune Wind plan is an assault on the Beasts.  


Metinic. Fair Metinic!  Southern anchor of the  globally recognized Outer Penobscot Bay IBA (Important Bird Area)

the other two anchors being Matinicus Rock, and Seal Island.  For there simply is no other island on earth that fulfils Metinic's role for eagles, terns, eiders, migrating warblers and many other avians winging their ways north and south along the Maine coast.  


If Neptune Wind can slaughter and clear Penobscot Bay's Important Bird Area,  can keep the surrounding waters blockaded from the scallop, herring  and groundfish fisheries, then they can put their wind turbines anywhere on Maine's coast.

Maine DeepCwind Consortium may drop Monhegan location for alternative Downeast site.

MONHEGAN ISLAND. Four members of the DeepCwind Consortium gave a presentation on Monhegan on February 16th, and  then took questions from island residents and from an opponent of the Consortium's plan to build and operate floating offshore wind test platforms south of  the wind-tossed scenic island.

Representing the Consortium were the University of Maine's Elizabeth Viselli, Jake Ward, Robert Lindyberg,  and Suzanne Pude of the Island Institute's Community Wind program. Collectively they described the history of ocean windfarming and the reasons for promoting it in Maine waters now, and described the technology they propose installing two miles south of the island.

While islanders at the meeting in the Monhegan schoolhouse were appreciative overall of the consortium's efforts and supportive of their ingenuity in seeking out renewable energy,  concerns were raised on a variety of fronts: noise and infrasound pollution, loss of fishing grounds access, visual pollution, and seabird mortality. Some island residents said that the state's decision to site near Monhegan took place without consulting them, in effect leaving them out of the loop . 

In response to those and other concerns, the DeepCwind representatives at the meeting agreed to drop the Monhegan location for an alternative site, if shown there are too many likely impacts to Monhegan's people, birds, scenic beauty and/or fishing  from their operation.  Jake Ward of the consortium said: " If everybody says that it totally makes no sense, then we'll have to look at one of the other test sites."    Listen to DeepCwind presenters  Read transcript of  followup question and answer session (pdf).

Most praised the overall process, but urged the consortium to be careful to determine ahead of time whether the windmills could  harm the island plantation's arts colonies, its thriving tourist trade, its fame as a birder's paradise and its lobster fisheries and groundfisheries. They also wondered if the political clout of DeepCwind Consortium members like BIW and Cianbro could overwhelm their voices before the government.  

While all welcomed the idea of  lower cost  non-petroleum-based electricity, they also voiced concerns, including the potential for the state's lease to be taken up by a  commercial operator. Some noted that the planning and decisionmaking process seems to be shaping up as one where Monhegan itself has little say beyond a consultative role.

The consortium members also noted interest by the aquaculture industry and by  tidal power researchers to also locate in the test area south of Monhegan.

Penobscot Bay activist Ron Huber briefly outlined his lawsuit in Maine Superior Court  over the state decision to designate a test area off Monhegan.

The wind researchers also revealed that the Baldacci Administration is about to bring a bill before the Legislature that would allow fast-tracking of commercial windfarm leases, throughout Maine state waters. Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree confirmed  the bill,  predicting  it to go public within the next few weeks. 

The final decision by DeepCwind on whether to stay with the Monhegan site may rest upon Maine Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm'  rulings as he considers the case,  Huber vs Bureau of Parks and Lands, in which plaintiff Huber  argues that the Bureau of Parks and Lands failed to adequately consider the impacts to Monhegan and the surrounding ecosystems before choosing it as host to the state's offshore test site. Huber is asking that the R&D site be moved to another of the alternative offshore locations that were under consideration by the state.

Ward and Pude promised to keep Monheganers abreast of developments.

PHOTOS: 1. Jake Ward of DeepCWind Consortium giving presentation to Monhegan residents February 16, 2010 Photo by RonHuber 2, View of  Monhwegan's Christmas Cove that would include windmills under state plan. February 16, 2010  Photo by Ron Huber. 3. Monhegan surrounded by windstorm whitecaps. Photo NASA

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

DeepCwind Consortium: who, what, where, why?

DeepCWind Consortium is one of those glittering spheres of furious activity, held together inside a speculative funding bubble, that is using a combination of money and the devastatingly effective public relations machine

called Robinson Public Relations  to work its way into the taxpayers' pockets and into the citizens' public air, waters and public submerged lands.

Membership of the University of Maine DeepCwind Deepwater Offshore Wind Consortium as of October 2009 (source: BDN):

Universities, government and nonprofit agencies
University of Maine — AEWC Advanced Structures & Composites Center (Lead)
University of New Hampshire
Maine Maritime Academy
Northern Maine Community College
University of Western Australia
U.S. Department of Energy
Governor’s Office of Energy Independence & Security
Maine Department of Economic and Community Development
Maine Department of Environmental Protection
Ocean Energy Institute
New Jersey Audubon Society
Island Institute
Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Siting, design and fabrication operations
Cianbro Corp.
Bath Iron Works
Bernstein Shur Counselors at Law
James W. Sewall Co.
Kleinschmidt Associates
Technip USA
McNiff Light Industry
Santos Wind Energy Technology (SWEeT)
Principle Power Inc.
Bangor-Hydro Electric Co.
American Superconductor
Northern Power Systems
Clean Energy Design
Composites Materials Industry
Ashland Inc.
Kenway Corp.
Harbor Technologies
PPG Industries
Owens Corning
Zoltek
Polystrand Inc.
Industry partners, organizations and manufacturing automation
MAG International
Maine Composites Alliance
Simmons & Company International
American Composites Manufacturers Association
Maine Wind Energy Initiative

Coastal current chaos coming if wind industry sets up in Gulf of Maine

In Homeric myth the priest Laocoön warns the Trojans against accepting the wooden horse presented them by the suddenly cheerily departing Greeks. Serious FAIL ensues when he is disregarded.

Likewise, Maine fishermen - beleaguered already by a host of corporate and governmental enemies - now find themselves being courted by big energy companies and their hangers-on  consider windmills a sort of "gift" from them. bringing new vertical habitat to marine life to cluster, and causing upwellings, where nutrient-richer seafloor water is pulled to the surface by the energy differential at the surface below where the energy is being extracted frmo the natural environment

But canny fishermen are increasingly wary of the potential for offshore windfarms to put a lasting crimp in Maine's lobster fishery, for these artificial upwellings can wreak havoc by fomenting current-diverting "chaotic excursions" at the interface where the normal lively surface waters of the Gulf of Maine meet the "harmonized" low-energy surface waters that make up  the aquatic 'half-dead zones' found downwind of ocean wind turbine fields.


What could be taking an excursion are the surface currents transporting lobster larvae and other zooplankton down the Gulf of Maine coast from Lubec to well beyond Cape Anne.The so-called "coastal current chaos" may divert larvae-bearing currents AWAY from the coast.

These predictions - and similar dire warnings for the Chesapeake Bay's famed blue crabs - come from an analysis of the results of  the study "Chaotic behavior of coastal currents due to random wind forcing"  by researchers at the National Institute of Standards & Technology in Gaithersburg Maryland, as well as other reports mentioned below.  Those results suggest the possibility that  persistent reduced-energy zone "footprints" could appear downwind of energy-extracting offshore wind removal operations, with implications for current flows. 

Normally, prevailing strong oceanic  winds keep coastal currents close inshore for much of of the Gulf of Maine.  But, diverted even slightly off course by the clash between upwelling  'harmonized' waters surrounding  proposed Gulf of Maine offshore windfarms,  and the normal  Maine Coastal Current, portions of that current may veer offshore many miles prematurely, to expend itself and its luckless planktonic passengers in the deep Wilkinson Basin.  There, a lobster larvae's typical fate is to become prey for the basin's native species.  

But don't worry, the government, the industry and the eco-yuppies are working out "community benefit agreements" in which lobstermen will be paid off for their wandering resource.  The lobster buyers, marketers and retailers, alas, will just have to find new work.


The lobsters, too, will have to fend for themselves.

UPDATE:  Offshore wind power could alter ocean currents This report by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute's Goran Brostrom concurs with the earlier NIST study. 

 "Extracting energy from wind changes regional air currents, which can in turn affect how the nearby ocean circulates", Brostrom told MSNBC. "Generating wind power at sea may disturb ocean currents and marine ecosystems."

Indeed, the upwellings Profesor Brostrom describes as resulting from the removal of energy from  a comparatively small but intensively harmonized  sea surface area in and around a windfarm of the types proposed for the Gulf of Maine are the very chaotic excursions described in the National Institute of Standards study, cited above.

News: Windpower opponent seeks to keep corporate consortium out of legal review.

UPDATE: The DeepC Wind Consortium is Off the Bus.
According to their lawyer he will drop their request to intervene.

 "Wind power opponent?"  Have I joined that not terribly exalted roster?

I would rather say  "Supporter of birds and beauty", and "Supporter of siting the windfarm R&D site where it is wanted and needed, not where it's most convenient for lazy wind entrepeneurs that would rather not have to trek to the "Other Maine".

But  reporter/editor Steve Betts of the Herald Gazette, who WILL write  about me without ever telephoning or emailing,  makes me out as "opponent", because I informed the court on February 5th  that I would rather keep the corporations out of the case, so I must be one.


The "DeepCwind Consortium" an unincorporated vague mass of corporations, ex-politicians and others, is run by the University of Maine. It hopes to profit by forcing windmills into Maine's public lands and state waters.

But the Consortium would only join the case to cloud the air and  muddy the waters.

For the information the judge needs to make his decision  is entirely within the existing public record.  The consortium would add nothing but hype to the process. They should be kept out and I hope the judge  agrees.

I have no problem with the University ITSELF intervening  in the case, however. Just not that pack of hungry corporate wolf fish calling itself the DeepCwind Consortium.

Wild birds love Monhegan! University of Maine: keep your windchoppers away!

UMaine President Robert A. Kennedy can save Monhegan's birds. Won't you send him an email? 


Tell him the University made the wrong decision: any of the four downeast candidate offshore wind energy test sites, but particularly the one off Machias, is better both for the University and for Maine people downeast, who will benefit as Machias becomes a global hub of wind-capture engineering
University of Maine: Keep out of Monhegan's winds & waters


Tell  U Maine's President to Disavow the Lease of Shame;

Tell him:
* Don't sentence hundreds of birds of dozens of species to sure death every year as they travel to and from Monhegan.


* Don't put Monhegan's impossible-to-find-elsewhere majestic scenic views of the Gulf of Maine and of the American Mainland, untrammeled by the least   intrusion of human activity, into the wastebin of history.


* Don't make the University of Maine an object of global scorn for clobbering the Gulf of Maine's ornithology. 

MONHEGAN STANDS ALONE

As that trembling reed of nature protection called Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands bows without resistance to the conquering Wind, and meekly signs death warrants against Puffins, Ospreys, Terns, Geese, Ducks, Loons, Shearwaters,  Storm-Petrels, Gannets, Herons, Hawks,  Kestrel,  Merlins,  Falcons and Eagles (and their songbird kin);

As former Governor King rushes slavering up and down the High Places, mustaches crusty with crimson'd feathers, a swarm of venture capitalists in his train;

As present Governor Baldacci musters the Legislature, impatient to join his predecessor, but for now wielding  the state's legal blades against the Low Places -a bit of indigestion, to be sure, from bolting down Vinalhaven's scenic assets too fast. Now seeking next  windy midcoast islands a'dreaming offshore to seize wind and seize the view;      

As eco-yuppies batten in greedy flocks and swarms, tearing cash from the carcasses of old promises to Gaia's natural citizens -, now but roadkill on the road to the ENGO e-Damascus, where spun platitudes  create at least a vision of energy plentitude;

As academics peer, some fearfully, some hungrily, from their ivory windtowers, awaiting their turn to experiment on enchained Aeolus, Anemoi, Ehecatl, Fujin, Njord, Pazuzu, Vayu, Venti, all the Wind Gods and Goddessess throttled, grotesquely crucified upon turbines, deafened by the ceaseless sobbing eldritch dirges, from  banshee shriekage to thudding bruising infrasound, that blunt the air.;

As  thrashed and choking zephyrs spin helplessly, their death spirals fouling the beauty-questing eye, and the Techno-Juggernaut rising to makes Its move;                                                                                              
As a universal shrug permeates Maine, New England, Turtle Island, pervades the entire Cosmos;

MONHEGAN STANDS ALONE

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Hot air in the pursuit of power: Island Institute chief lashes out at wind-injured Maine islanders

One can tell Phil Conkling's  been running his Island Institute for too long.  Again flush with cash, (MBNA's self immolation burned a big hole in the II's wallet for a few years), this time enriched by the electricity industry bucket-brigading the long green his direction, Conking's turned his back on the islands and islanders he once so earnestly swore to protect, back in the mists of time when he began his organization, decades ago, working out of a little white frame house on the Rockland waterfront - with CLF's fishery lawyers laboring quietly downstairs.  (MBNA smashed this icon years ago when it took over and took down Fisher Plow's old digs nearby).

Having  staked his fortune on joining in the Windrush with Angus King  - and shortly, John Baldacci , who's likewise discovered his future to be filled with wind -  Phil  is committed to aiding and abetting the  extraction of gigawatts of energy from the winds of the Gulf of Maine - enough to not only be used for lighting and electronics, but  also to use for the brute force use of electricity for heating residential and business buildings through Maine winters.

Now Phil Conkling is driven to distraction by residents of  islands like Vinalhaven and Monhegan complaining that their traditional way of life is being threatened by or already hammered by his literal pursuit of power. How dare they!

But rather than admit the crusty old islanders, the ones whose anecdotes and sturdy workboats  fill the pages of the Island Institute's monthly tabloid andits coffee table books,  have a right to their point of view, Phil has decided that the complaining  fishermen and other islanders are a minority on the wrong side of, if not history, at least II's revenue stream, and must yield or be shoved out of the way. Ditto for journalists who fail to swallow the II's spin.

Perhaps Phil should 'graduate' from the Institute and take a nice relaxing long rest on his laurels.

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”?