Mega-windfarm plan off Maine proposed by New Jersey power group

 

A group of New Jersey power companies proposes installing thousands of windmills in state and federal waters in a mega windfarm stretching from Maine to South Carolina.  

Critics say that by the so-called "Fishermen's Energy"  consortium is run by giant power companies  and would place choice areas of the Gulf of Maine "commons" under absentee corporate control, resembling the corporate ownership of the Maine Woods. The plan awaits legislative action on LD 1810, which would open Maine state waters to the New Jersey utilities  

A figurehead  spokesman for Fishermen's Energy said that a group of New Jersey corporate fishing fleet owners decided to give up their fishing grounds in exchange for jobs servicing the steel behemoths the big energy companies want to install off the Atlantic coast. 

In return, the giant energy corporations get to market themselves as a "community-based offshore wind development". This branding is important. Under that designation, energy companies are immune from important environmental laws and regulations.

Are Mainers ready to have the waters off their shores placed under absentee corporate control? (NJ-based, no less?) 

If not - a reasonable guess, then you better make your point of view known to the Maine legislature before Thursday afternoon, when the Utility and Energy Committee decides what to do with the bill  LD 1810.  HERE'S HOW:

Email and phone these two committees of the legislature:Be sure to mention LD 1810 in the email subject line.

* Send it to the Utility and Energy Committee Clerk Kristen Gottlieb Kristen.Gottlieb@legislature.maine.gov. Ask her to forward it to the committee's members. She will.  Tell the committee members that the bill is too risky to Maine's fishing families, sailing fleets and water-access dependent resorts. It needs to be either turned into a resolve or given an Ought Not To Pass,

* Do the same for the Marine Resources Committee Clerk Marianne MacMaster Marianne.MacMaster@legislature.maine.gov 

Be sure to mention LD 1810 in the subject line

Ask Marianne to forward your email to her committee's members. In your email tell the Marine Resources Committee that it needs to hold hearings on this bill next year, since the Utility/Energy committee doesn't know anything about fisheries, and shouldn't be forced to decide the future of Maine fishermen.

Send an email to Maine's Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree at hannah@pingree.com.  Representative Pingree represents the fishing towns of Brooklin, Deer Isle, Stonington, Swans Island, Frenchboro, Tremont, Isle au Haut, North Haven and part of Mount Desert Island.

Let Hannah know that those communities and all Maine coastal communities stand to lose everything if LD 1810 is rushed through, and windmills start sprouting in Maine fishing grounds.

Call and email your personal  state legislators Leaving a call message for your legislator at any of these numbers makes a huge difference.  They will talk to members of the Utility and Marine Resources Committees andlet them know their constituents are not happy with LD 1810.   Do it!

List of all senators: Emails click here (207) 287-1540 message line

All Representatives Emails click Here (207) 287-1400 message

Tell them to 

(1) amend the bill by cutting away everything dealing with leasing state waters for windfarming. This cuts LD 1810 from 36 pages to 1 paragraph. Leave the state waters issues to be considered  AFTER the coastal fisheries and communities have weighed in on the wording, in 2012

Or (2)  turn the full LD 1810 bill into a Resolve, and run it past the fishing and sailing communities as well as the Marine Resources and Natural Resources committees for a year with legislation coming up in 2012;

Or (3) vote LD 1810 Ought Not to Pass 

Send it to Davy Jones' Locker, where it belongs. 

Our politicians are getting a lot of flack and pressure from the wind industry. As long as you contact as many of them as you have time to, once or twice more before the Thursday work session on the bill, the Legislature will not do anything they understand might risk Maine's fisheries getting overwhelmed by a sprawl of wind leases in state waters.  

They should be told again and again, the bill is too much, too risky, and too late in the session.  

Either vote it Ought Not to Pass, Amputate it of all state waters sections,  or turn it into a Resolve for further study. Nothing else is acceptable!

It's your Gulf of Maine. Deal with it!

Maine Ocean Wind Energy Bill - Shrink it or Sink it! Here's how.

Groundfishermen, scallopers, shrimpers!  Striper & bluefish anglers! Sea Kayakers & Windjammers!

Your future will be decided on Thursday March 18, 2010, when the Maine legislature decides  whether to open Maine's nearshore state waters to wind energy leasing, when it holds a work session on  LD 1810 An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force  

Tell Maine legislators to either cut LD 1810 down from 38 pages to one paragraph. turn it into a "resolve", or kill it.     Information on  what to do, below

Are you a friend of continued commercial and recreational fishing in Maine state waters?

A careful reading of the state waters windfarm expansion  bill  LD 1810   leads to the conclusion that it is mostly not worth saving. After reading  the review details, below, tell your legislators to either

(1) turn it into a Resolve,  

(2) cut the bill down from 38 pages down to one page, or 

(3) give it an Ought Not To Pass.

Keep the pressure on Augusta from now to Thursday afternoon, and Maine's irreplaceable state waters commercial fishing grounds will be safe.  

(See the suggestions on what to do, below.)

Thursday afternoon, March 18th,  is when the Utility and Energy Committee will decide what, if any version of the bill LD 1810  will come out of their committee for a vote by the full legislature.

At the end of the March 11th hearing  on this bill, the U/E Committee was committed to seriously amending it,  for two reasons. Fisheries protection and the oil heat industry.

THE PLAN To protect Maine fishermen from losing fishing grounds to wind farm encroachment, sections of the LD 1810  relating to state waters must be deleted. This means delete everything in the bill but the following section in Part A: 

" 35-A MRSA §3402, sub-§3  is added:

3.  Transition to more efficient energy sources for home heating and transportation.   The Legislature finds that replacement of motor vehicles and conversion of residential and commercial heating systems in previously weatherized structures to more efficient energy sources, including electric heat pumps and electric motor vehicles, furthers state goals regarding energy independence and reduction of overall energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions and furthers the State's ocean and other renewable energy resources goals, including those established in section 3404, subsection 2.  "

Note this part of the bill if strongly opposed by the home oil heating contractors of Maine and they will probably get rid of it.

All the rest of the bill either (1) opens up Maine fishing grounds to leasing for windfarms or (2) lets wind companies "take" shorefront and inland private property to get their wind electricity cables ashore and transported via power towers as far inland  as needed to join the National Grid. 

There is no way to safely untangle any other part of the bill without the wind industry  investors from Boston and New Jersey using it to lease up to a 1000 square miles of  Maine's fishing grounds by 2012

THE PREDICTION The combination of opposition by Maine fishermen and by Maine heating oil people should be enough to KILL THE BILL. 

As a Compromise you could tell them to pass the bill as a resolution or resolve, then send  the ideas in it to all the groups, organizations and legislative committees like Marine Resources that pertain to or make up the saltwater commercial and sport fishing industries, and come back to the legislature in 2012 with whatever those various interests and communities have decided is acceptable.

Getting the legislators to gut the bill or convert it to a harmless resolve is possible because of the pressure you fishermen have already put on the politicians you have contacted. It has made them take notice. Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree,  Marine Resources Committee chair Leila Percy, and many other legislators are standing up for you. 

But to be sure, we need to keep the politicians doing the right thing all the way to the end of the work session Thursday. The wind industry's  mouthpieces areworking hard at stopping you from succeeding.  Send legislators emails. Phone them at home or in Augusta before Thursday afternoon.  Both are really powerful.  Email addresses and phone#s below, and a summary of things to tell them

WHAT TO DO

Email and phone the two committees of the legislature:

Be sure to mention LD 1810 in the email subject line 

* Send it to the Utility and Energy Committee Clerk Kristen Gottlieb Kristen.Gottlieb@legislature.maine.gov .Ask her to forward it to the committee's members. She will.  Tell the committee members that the bill is too risky to your livelihood and needs to be either turned into a resolve or given an Ought Not To Pass,

* Do the same for the Marine Resources Committee Clerk Marianne MacMasterMarianne.MacMaster@legislature.maine.gov Be sure to mention LD 1810 in the subject line

Ask Marianne to forward your email to her committee's members. In your email tell the Marine Resources Committee that it needs to hold hearings on this bill next year, since the Utility/Energy committee doesn't know a thing about fisheries, and shouldn't be trusted with deciding Maine fishermen's future.

Call and email your personal  state legislators Leaving a message for your legislator at any of these numbers makes a huge difference, when they talk to members of the Utility and Marine Resources Committees.   Do it!

List of all senators: Emails click here (207) 287-1540 message line

All Representatives Emails click Here (207) 287-1400 message

Tell them to 

(1) amend the bill by cutting away everything dealing with leasing state waters for windfarming. This cuts LD 1810 from 36 pages to 1 paragraph. Leave the state waters issues to be considered  AFTER the coastal fisheries and communities have weighed in on the wording, in 2012

Or (2)  turn the full LD 1810 bill into a Resolve, and run it past the fishing and sailing communities as well as the Marine Resources and Natural Resources committees for a year with legislation coming up in 2012;

Or (3) vote LD 1810 Ought Not to Pass Send it to Davy Jones' Locker, where it belongs. 

Our politicians are getting a lot of flack and pressure from the wind industry. As long as you contact as many of them as you have time to, once or twice more before the Thursday work session on the bill, the Legislature will not do anything they understand might risk Maine's fisheries getting overwhelmed by a sprawl of wind leases in state waters.  

They should be told again and again, the bill is too much, too risky, and too late in the session.   Either give it an Ought Not to Pass, Amputate it of all state waters sections,  or Turn it into a resolve. Nothing else is acceptable

 PS Here are recordings from the March 11, 2010  hearing on LD 1810 . 

*  Introduction 7 minutes 

* Senator Hobbins Sponsor of LD 1810 6 min
* Representative Leila Percy, Co chair Marine Resources Committee 2 min
* Beth Nagusky MDEP Energy Office 12 min
* Beth Nagusky questioned 18 min
* Senator Kevin Raye 8 min
* Rep Stacey Fitts, Co sponsor 12 min
* Rep Seth Berry 4:17 min
* George Lapointe. DMR  6 min
* George Lapointe Q & A  5 min
* Chuck Digate, Neptune Wind 
* Chuck Digate, Neptune Q&A
* Bob Baynes. Lobsterman  2 min
* Shawn Mahoney, CLF  7 min
* John Ferland, Ocean Renewable Power Co  9 min
* Lance Burton of Castine 3 min
* Bill Staby, Resolute Energy  4min
* J. Monroe, Blue Water Dynamos  11 min
* Ron Huber, Penobscot Bay Watch 7 min
* Bob Moore, Dead River Oil, 11 min
* Ned Bulmer, Maine Energy Marketing Assn  9 min
* Carol Lee ex head of Bangor Hydro 7min
* Caroll Lee, Q&A 6 min
* John Pierce of Harspwell 4 min
* Chris O'Neill, Saco 10 min 

It's your state waters. Deal with it.

The War of 1810 - Maine's fishermen move to repel Big Wind invaders from their home waters.

A good day for fishermen at Maine's State Legislature concerning LD 1810, An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force.  

Listen to testimony at the March 11 hearing

Prelude to battle. In the 36 hours before the hearing, members of the Utility and Energy Committee  heard loud and clear from Maine fishermen about their extreme displeasure with the notion of this bill opening up Maine state waters to nearshore commercial windfarms, pushing scallopers shrimpers & groundfishermen out.  

A war of words.  At the hearing, not only fishery activists, but Representative Leila Percy, co-chair of the Marine Resources Committee, let them know both that the bill  threatened Maine fishermen and was not acceptable, and that she spoke for Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree (who couldn't be there)  on this as well.  Listen to Representative Percy here (2 minute mp3)  Other legislators too, chimed in that their constituents weren't having any part of it.. Listen to them all  (7 recordings so far; more being added. Keep checking back)

Shock and awe. As the TV cameras rolled, and energy lobbyists reeled in dismay,  the Utility and Energy Committee switched from unqualified support for LD 1810, to acknowledging two alternatives: either 

(1) turning LD 1810 into a Resolve, and shipping it round  to other legislative committees and commercial fishing communities next year before taking any action, or 

(2)  removing from the bill all wording related to anything that would facilitate  commercial windfarm operations in Maine state waters.

Under # 2, the bill would continue with sections that give the wind industry tax breaks and immunizes it from a variety of conservation and environmental laws, also known as  "streamlining"  the laws.  "Streamlining? More like amputating the law," one conservation  activist grumped to the committee,  and the room filled with uneasy laughter.

Also remaining in the altered LD 1810  would be a controversial "Welfare Wind" section, This part of the bill forces Mainers to subsidize the wind industry by requiring electricity utilities to purchase wind-generated power for triple what they pay Bangor Hydro and other  electricity providers,  but then allows the utilities  to pass  the increased cost on to Maine consumers.

The Enemy of my enemy is my Friend. The oil heating industry also showed up in opposition to LD 1810  In particular, they opposed a section that calls for phasing their industry out of the home and commercial heating business and requiring Maine consumers to use electricity for heating.  

While oil and lobsters don't mix well in nature, in Augusta they may together push LD 1810, and the energy industry behind it, far away from its original goals.  


Counteroffensive in the offing?  The Windies will surely strike back and try to retake the conceptual ground , will try to recapture the bill and keep it as they wrote it.  It will be important for those concerned with keeping Maine state waters open for fishing and closed to wind extraction to keep up the pressure on legislators   The work session where the final decision will be made will happen  next week. 


Stay tuned. Stay ready.

Maine Fishermens' Forum 2010, audio of meeting on nearshore windfarming plan

At the Maine Fishermen's Forum in Rockport Maine on Saturday March 6, 2010. a group of wind industry reps and academics, agency officials and ENGOs rolled out a late-in-the-session new bill LD 1810 that would open up all of Maine's nearshore fishing grounds to 40 to 50 year windfarm leases, replete with exemptions from state conservation and pollution laws and a host of other greasings of the skids..  Photos from the seminar
  
Listen below to the wind industry and government speakers at the Fishermen's Forumis event. A skeptical crowd of fishermen listens silently as the speakers make their pitches for leasing off Maine's state waters to  the power industry. Note that NOBODY gets any applause.   Unusual at the 'Forum.

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

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.