Maine: A Flawed Law, A Failed Legislature and A Future Legacy

I recently read an excellent letter written by a Bangor man and addressed to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in regards to First Wind’s proposed Bingham wind project which – if permitted – will dominate the beautiful rural hills along Route 16 all the way from Bingham east through Kingsbury and Mayfield to Abbott.  The writer asked for specific answers to several important questions – about the Bingham project in particular, and about wind energy in general.  It was a great letter…

…but the reality is that it won't make any difference; not to the future of the project or to the overall plan to develop Maine’s rural summits with grid-scale wind energy facilities.

The DEP and the Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC), as well as every comparable regulatory agency in the state of Maine, have had those important questions asked of them AND they’ve heard the answers. It doesn’t matter if the questions are smart or stupid or if the answers are right or wrong – it doesn’t make any difference to siting authorities. They have a job to do.  They must work within the parameters laid out for them by the government.

It doesn't matter if grid-scale industrial wind projects make sense.

It doesn't matter if they provide jobs or take jobs away.
 
It doesn’t matter if they are competitive or self-supporting or tax-payer funded.
 
It doesn’t matter if wind projects raise rates or harm the environment or devalue property or impact people’s health.

It doesn't matter how much electricity they generate or even if, after the fact, they produce electricity at all.

DEP is mandated to adhere to the laws set out before them.  If a wind project is in compliance with the standards set forth, DEP is charged with granting the developer a permit.

Until the law (and specifically, the Wind Energy Act of 2008) changes, DEP doesn’t have a choice.  It must continue with business-as-usual as it pertains to wind development.

In May of 2008 our 123rd Legislature enacted a law so bizarre that I dare say if the general public had known its intimate details, LD 2283 never would have passed the ‘straight face test’ – let alone pass unanimously and without debate in the State House.  More astounding is the fact that this law was enacted as EMERGENCY LEGISLATION.   Written into the bill's own language was the claim that it was "immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety". 

No kidding.  In reading this bill, one is led to believe that the Maine ‘public’ was about to meet our doom – that we would be in dire straits, indeed – unless the wind industry received special privileges IMMEDIATELY. Yes, our elected officials in the 123^rd Maine Legislature passed a bill that granted favored status to one industry only – the wind industry – and did it while hiding behind the absurd argument that the law was immediately necessary to “preserve public peace, health and safety.”

You can’t make this stuff up.  But the truth of the matter is that the passage of the Wind Energy Act has produced outcomes which are 180 degrees opposite from its stated purpose.

It has destroyed public ‘peace’. For one thing, moving mechanical structures that are almost twice as tall as Maine’s tallest skyscrapers are incredibly noisy.  Line up a few dozen gargantuan wind turbines and the sound goes bone-deep.  It becomes part of you.  You breathe in tempo with it…clench your teeth to its rhythm.  You can’t escape it – and it is anything but ‘peaceful’.  But literal translation aside, one need only speak to locals in Maine communities which have confronted the prospect of a wind energy facility to see the deep rifts which now exist between neighbors and friends.  The fall-out has been long-lasting and it’s terribly sad.  The ‘peace’ of many Maine villages has been destroyed by wind…whether or not a turbine was ever erected within its borders. 

Passage of the Act has also impaired the health of many Mainers.  Anyone who cares to know the truth can have a conversation with affected locals in Mars Hill, Freedom, Vinalhaven, Woodstock, Lincoln, Danforth and Roxbury.  They will quickly determine how citizens’ health, well-being and quality of life have been negatively impacted by the construction and operation of grid-scale wind turbines near residences.

The Act has increased danger, too.  Danger to raptors, migratory birds and bats, danger of catastrophic forest fires, danger from ice throw and blade throw, danger of lightning strikes in remote areas, danger of massive contaminant spills in unspoiled environments, danger on Maine roads during transport of the massive turbine components…and more.

The Wind Energy Act is terribly flawed.  From its inception the flaws were apparent to anyone who gave the law more than a cursory glance. Its flaws were also brought into the spotlight in 2012 by the Maine Wind Energy Development Assessment Report, which was commissioned by the 125^th Legislature and undertaken by independent consultants under the purview of the Governor’s Energy Office. 

The Wind Energy Act should be repealed.  It NEEDS to be repealed.  There is no ‘fixing’ something that is as damaging and defective as this law is.

So the question becomes... how do we change the law?  How do we repeal it?  And how do we minimize or repair the damage this law has already caused to Maine citizens and to Maine’s landscape and environment?

Do we fix all this by changing the people who are hired to make our laws?

Well… we hold elections every two years and frankly – in this case – installing new lawmakers hasn’t made any difference. Since 2010 we’ve had a Republican-controlled Legislature and a Democratic-controlled one but we are no closer to changing this flawed policy than we were four years ago.

This bears thinking about.  Hundreds and hundreds of citizens have repeatedly tried to bring economics, common sense and integrity back into Maine’s ‘energy’ picture but the fact of the matter is that the wind industry, its lobbyists and supporters have far more ‘say’ and ‘sway’ in this state than we do.  

If our Legislators want to do what’s right by the People of Maine and prove they work for us and not for Special Interests, they can start by reading the Wind Energy Act. 

After that, they can study the 2012 OEIS Report, which was provided to them on several occasions but which many Legislators admit they haven’t taken the time to read.

They can study the FACTS about grid-scale wind -- not memorize and repeat the tag lines, rhetoric and baloney that comes from biased sources.  

Finding and studying factual information from non-biased sources is easy. 

Standing toe to toe with a powerful industry takes a little more nerve.

Look at the following excerpt from the Wind Energy Act… the law that DEP and LUPC have as a guiding document.  In passing LD2283, the 123^rd Legislature enacted a law which TOLD the People of the State of Maine that “Wind energy is an economically feasible, large-scale energy resource that does not rely on fossil fuel combustion or nuclear fission, thereby displacing electrical energy provided by these other sources and avoiding air pollution, waste disposal problems and hazards to human health from emissions, waste and by-products”.

This is Maine LAW.  Our State has declared – without providing any proof to back up its claims – that wind energy is ‘economically feasible’. 

‘Economically feasible.’

Is it?  Is it really?  How so?  By what standards?  By whose standards? Per megawatt, how does wind compare with other energy sources? 

It doesn’t compare. 

We know it doesn’t. 

The Wind Industry knows it doesn’t. 

And by God, any current Legislator worth his or her salt also knows wind doesn’t compare… because we’ve given each of them the facts, over and over again.  I’ve personally sent information to every Senator and every Representative of the 125^th and the 126^th Legislatures…information provided to the American public by our own U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other credible sources. 

For just one comparative example, let’s look at what tax-payers contribute for wind energy.  From 2012 figures: wind generators took federal subsidies at a rate of $56.29 per megawatt hour.  Yes, FIFTY-SIX DOLLARS AND TWENTY-NINE CENTS per megawatt hour.  Reliable generators like natural gas and coal received $0.64 (64 cents) per megawatt hour, hydro got $0.82 (82 cents) per megawatt hour and nuclear came in at $3.14. 

But Maine law says wind is ‘economically feasible’.  And if it’s the law, it must be so.

What other misrepresentations have been enacted into law; a law that passed without debate and as emergency legislation?  How about the statement that wind energy displaces generators using fossil fuels or nuclear fission to produce electricity? 

Has it?  Has the proliferation of ‘wind’ ever, ever caused Maine (or any other state in the United States of America) to shut down one of those other sources? 

Well… it’s the law, right?  It must be so….

Is it not so?  Maine law says wind is ‘displacing’ those sources, but where is the evidence to support that claim?  Has anyone provided proof that even one traditional generator has been displaced/shut down/taken off-line due to the addition of wind to our energy mix?

No. 

Were the authors of the Wind Energy Act required to back up their claims with evidence…or did the 123^rd drop the ball completely and accept such ridiculous, all-encompassing claims without requiring proof of those assertions? 

Did the 123^rd Legislature add a stipulation to the law that required that conventional generators must be ‘displaced’ after ‘x’ number of wind turbines were brought online – and if they weren’t displaced, did they legislate that no more could be built?

No. 

What would Maine citizens think if they found out that wind – an expensive, high-impact/low benefit and unnecessary addition to an energy supply which already exceeds demand – has displaced previously built (and currently existing) renewable, non-polluting, reliable and storable hydro power? 

It can’t be, right?  Maine law says wind will displace fossil fuels and nuclear fission, not Maine hydro power. 

The truth needs to be told and it needs to be told now.  A destructive and flawed law is being allowed to remain on the books and no one in authority has required that the Maine public be informed of the truth as it pertains to industrial wind.  This industry – an industry which profits directly from money we tax-payers and rate-payers provide – has been allowed to hide production figures, maintenance costs, even catastrophic mechanical failures and fires.  They have been allowed to keep the truth from those who are paying for their product due to nebulous claims of ‘proprietary information’, trade secrets, competitive markets and more. 

Instead of being given factual information about this energy source, the public has been told, via a law on Maine’s books, that wind is displacing polluting generators. 

But it isn’t, is it?

The public has NOT been told that wind has sometimes displaced non-polluting, already existing renewable generators like hydro. 

But it has, hasn’t it?  

The law also says wind energy will avoid “air pollution, waste disposal problems and hazards to human health from emissions, waste and by-products”. 

Really and truly – it says that, right there in plain English.

But where in the law is there mention of the thousands of human beings who are sickened and killed due to the mining and smelting of the rare earth metals needed to manufacture the composites for wind turbines? 

Where in the law is it mentioned that huge swaths of China are now uninhabitable due to the toxic waste created in the process of manufacturing turbines?

Where is it mentioned that the plastics and cements for these projects are often produced in foreign coal-fired plants which operate without the standard EPA restrictions for pollution and emissions? 

Do we read about the millions of gallons of water used in the production of wind turbines? 

Where in the law is there mention of the pollution caused by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels (most often diesel fuel) to ship these massive turbines around the globe to our harbors and then transport them through the heartland to our mountain summits? 

Where in the law is there mention of the acres and acres of carbon-sequestering vegetation that is destroyed to build permanent roads through our forests, along the sides of our hills and the length of our ridges? 

Where does the law mention the herbicides that are sprayed to keep all that vegetation from re-growing? 

Where does the law talk about what those chemicals do to our drinking water supplies and to our lakes and rivers when they are washed down the hillsides? 

Where is mention of the impact to our water tables and water sources from the massive blasting of mountain bedrock (those mountains being our natural ‘water towers’) to anchor countless 400-500 foot tall turbines? 

Yes, the Wind Energy Act says wind will avoid “air pollution, waste disposal problems and hazards to human health from emissions, waste and by-products”.  It is the law – and the law says so. 

But look at all the law does not say.

This Maine law also states that wind energy will protect us from ‘emissions’. 

Emissions. 

With one exception, every existing grid-scale wind energy project in Maine has been the subject of complaints about noise emissions.  Due to the health impacts of wind’s high, low and ultra-low frequency noise and the resultant loss of ‘quality of life’, some Mainers have abandoned their homes.  They have walked out and left them because they couldn’t bear the incessant noise.  Other Mainers have built bedrooms in their basements in an attempt to escape the oppressive noises so that they can sleep.  Still others – including Maine children — have been prescribed medications never needed before the arrival of this constant assault on their senses.  Anti-depressants, sleeping pills, blood pressure medication, and more.  We are drugging our children because Maine law clearly informs us that wind energy was needed – and needed IMMEDIATELY – in order to “preserve public peace, health and safety”.

Elsewhere in the world, infrasound has been used as an effective torture device. 

Let me say that again.

Elsewhere in the world, infrasound has been used as an effective torture device.  Something that is used to torture people is part and parcel of a law that was forced upon Mainers as Emergency Legislation.  For our protection. 

Rather than doing a nominal amount of homework or exercising due diligence, the 123^rd Legislature did exactly what it was told to do by the wind lobby, the so-called ‘environmental’ lobby and the governor who needed to leave his mark on Maine.

John Baldacci left his mark, all right.  The scars are carved into our wooded hillsides and across our beautiful mountain summits.  Other scars look like ‘For Sale’ signs on formerly-treasured homes and seasonal cottages.  Still others are less visible but more wounding. 

The haunted eyes of children who can’t sleep at night and who can’t concentrate at school during the day. 

The drawn faces of adults who suffer from heart palpitations, tinnitus, vertigo and panic attacks. 

The discouraged looks of citizens who know the Wind Law is bad for Maine but who have failed in every way to make substantive changes because the Law protects the Goliath industry and stacks the deck against citizens.

How did rational people pass a law which was so counter-intuitive to anything resembling common sense? At this point in time, it really doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that we turn this thing around.  Now.  What matters is that we see to it that Maine’s energy plan is one that is designed to bring science, economics, common sense and ethics back into the equation.

It won’t happen unless we insist on it. 

It won’t happen as long as the industry and its supporters can make claims which are unsupported by facts. 

It won’t happen until the industry and its supporters are required to provide evidence to back up the ‘presumption of benefits’ which are part of the Wind Energy Act.

This is a flawed law.  Unbiased experts agree. 

The Wind Energy Act should not remain on the books any longer. 

The 126^th Legislature had a responsibility to study the Law and the OEIS Report. 

They had several opportunities to make some substantive and common-sense changes.

But instead of acting, they kicked the proverbial can down the road.  Again.

Just as their predecessors in the 125^th Legislature did. 

This failure to act –this failure to perform due diligence even when factual information

was provided to them – is indicative of a state government that no longer works in the

best interests of the People who support it.

This is not acceptable.  If our elected officials are unable to make corrections to the Law and are unwilling to stand up to the wind industry, the People of Maine will have to show them how.

The Wind Energy Act must be repealed. Please inform the now-recessed 126^th Legislature that we won’t tolerate any more delays. 

While they are vacationing, wind turbine facilities are being permitted – under a flawed law – in the most beautiful and peaceful places in rural Maine.  

While they enjoy the right to have a voice in zoning decisions in their communities, rural villages like Lexington and Concord are denied any say in their own futures.

While they stall and delay and cater to the pressure of the wind lobby and the so-called ‘environmental’ lobby, Maine citizens are bearing the burden of mistakes made by their predecessors and maintained and prolonged by their own actions.

Rural Mainers don’t get a ‘vacation’.  We are under assault now.

The Wind Energy Act must be repealed. 

Now.