Questions for Maine DEP
Dec 10, 2010 12:01 am
To the Editor:
Can someone at the Maine DEP please answer a few basic questions about industrial wind?
Why is it okay to put these 400-foot tall Cuisinarts within 1,200 feet of residential dwellings, knowing that when they collapse they can throw parts up to half a mile, knowing that health issues are being caused by the sounds they produce, property values are being degraded and the destruction of our mountain tops and ridge lines threatens Maine’s wildlife, waters and communities, jeopardizes the billions of dollars that tourism brings into the state, will raise electric rates and drive businesses and jobs out; knowing that the highly subsidized, erratic and “proprietarily secret” amounts of electricity these “farms” generate isn't needed or even being offered to Mainers, won’t wean us off foreign oil, shut down any existing power plants or reduce CO2 levels? And why is it these proposed offshore wind “farms” will be built “out of sight of land?”
Why? Could it be that well heeled coastal residents are more important than us blue collar workers in Western Maine? Some answers, please. We deserve them, even if we are regarded as second class citizens. We pay taxes, too, and we love our mountains.
Penny Gray,
Carthage