Wind Power hearing

imported
#1

Some random thoughts on the public testimony last night:

I heard quite often that some consider wind turbines to be beautiful. I heard it so often that I wanted to ask them if they considered the turbines more beautiful than the mountains they’d be going on.

There have been about 10 wind power projects near to the AT corridor. The National Park Service opposed none of them - until now. Gee, wonder why???

The American Lung Association of Maine supports this project. They frequently mentioned asthma, as though it is caused exclusively by global warming. When I gave testimony, I considered mentioning that I lost a sister to asthma, and the absence or presence of wind turbines would not have saved her in any way, but I thought I’d look too much like someone desperate to win an argument. I didn’t say it, but it is true.

Wish I could’ve hung around for the intervener’s session tomorrow (8/4). I wish them all the luck in the world.

By the way, while I was down there, I hiked up Burnt Hill (aka Burnt Mountain). Awesome, guys, a major must see - especially if the wind turbines goes through, as the whole of Reddington cannot be seen from Burnt Hill - blocked out by Sugarloaf and Spaulding.

I could’ve gone hiking up here, in my own neck of the woods, but felt it would’ve been selfish. In fact, if this wind power project is accepted by the LURC commisioners, everyone who stayed home and did nothing should take a hit for being so selfish. That’s not an opinion that’ll make me popular . . . :frowning: but those are words I won’t take back. They are true, after all.

Hike your own hike . . . while you can.

Kineo Kid

#2

wind turbines will not necessarily ruin the “hiking experience”. the pct literally goes through fields filled with hundreds of the giant windmills and i can say that it in no way hurts the beauty of the trail. if you compare the other 2,643 miles without windmills with the 20 or so miles with windmills, it sort of makes that little section neat to walk through. and think of it in another way, the more wind power that can be harnessed for energy means the more possible it will be to remove some very unwated damms so that our rivers and valleys could go back to being the way they were. no matter what way we as humans go for energy there will always be some unsightly apparatus haning around. for instance, solar= big panels, wind=big windmills, water=big concrete damms.

   i have to say that the windmills was one of the things that i was looking forward to on my pct hike last year. and i am sure that some people that hike the at will also look forward to seeing these giants  if they do in fact go up.      and hey its better than digging up our ground for coal and oil right?  how would you like it if they said,  "weeelllll we are planning on just diggin up about this 40 mile section of the at so that we can get our oil out,  yall want to drive dont you?"    that makes the windmills look alot better.

anyhooooo,   as long of we as hikers love "walking" then nothing can  will really hinder our hiking experience.

i hope that everybody has a wonderful day out there!

TYVEK

TYVEK

#3

walmart at every road crossing would be grrrreaatt!!!

just think of the resupply possibilities!! you wouldnt even have to carry food with you, just go to walmart for your meals! and then they could put one in the middle of the sierras so that we dont get to discouraged by carring food for a couple days! :slight_smile:

  and the oil rigs with all their moving parts will certainly keep all those pesky vermin (animals) away from our food!!!     here here,  im all for walmarts at each road crossing,  what a dream that would be!

TYVEK

TYVEK

#4

I agree tyvek!!! Then all we need is some sort of rail service that will transport me over the trail without getting my feet tired. And air conditioning. Then AT can charge admission and have animatronic bears and snakes and fake trees then Disney can take over and overcharge me for a ice cream bar. YAY!!!

mudbug

#5

I am one who does not want to see or hear windmills on my hike. As prophet said, too many damn people on this planet, and we ain’t seen nothin yet. We who care must put up a fight even though we might lose in the end. Now is not the time to give in. I live in one of the fasterst growing areas of the US, and progress will roll over everything we hold dear if we let. LOOK ahead. Imagine condos on ever ridge, imagine a WalMart across the street from Old Faithful, a 4 lane highway that runs up and over Mt. Whitney. Laugh, well nothing is out of the question any more. If you dont live in a fast growing area you may not comprehend that many of our government bodies hold nothing sacred any more, except money and power and the arrogance they breed. And these people are difficult to vote out because the past three decades have bred a new breed of arrogant selfish voting people. They rule. And the poor and downtrodden care less and less as they fall victim to societies vices, TV and video game. So we have the arrogant and the apathetic, and they are the biggest threat to our natural world. Where there are windmills there will be more …

harrier

#6

Antigreed is right on about Corporate America programming us to be consumers and eat any piece of shyt their marketers throw at us. Just look at the recent trend in trashy new car styles, with glowing pimp blue colors and jive style hubcaps. Nobody blinks.

It goes beyond manipulating products, however. The leaders of the corporate world – and especially the media – are setting social trends deliberately and persistently. Go to any movie made in the past 10 to 15 years, and it jumps right out at you. Same in other media. Until the average person starts to unplug themselves from America Inc.'s propaganda boxes and learn to listen to their own minds, we will never have a chance to say “NO” to the corporate manipulators.

North Point

#7

Prophet hit it right on the head. You can see it with the Bush push to sell our national forests to the timber and theme park companies, and the opening of the last protected places to oil drilling.

“The AT (and other major trails) are in a decline and it won’t be long before we have a walmart at every road crossing and oil drilling where shelters used to be. There are to many damn people on this planet and we are in desperate need of a major plague to wipe out some of these vermon that can’t seem to live without destroying everything that’s beautiful.”

Point North

#8

Oppose the windmills all you like but in the future I don’t want to hear any whining about declining air quality. It’s not just CO2 that’s put out by burning fossil fuels.

Lcomotive Breath

#9

Our civilization needs energy, and as Tyvek pointed out, there is always a trade off regardless of the method used to generate this energy. As fossil fules become less viable, we need to develop an alternative infrastructure that is hopefully based on sustainable and renewable resources. We also need to work on using that energy more efficiently so we can minimize the impact on the environment. My recomendation is to paint the windmills so the look like trees, and then we should shut off the internet to save electricity. :slight_smile:

Bill

#10

Windfarms are part of the solution to a lot of problems. I’d want to think through any wind farm project as an individual case. Acid rain and other pollution related problems are affecting the AT.

I wish camaflouging wind farms was a solution, but in most cases it would highten the danger to migratory birds and other flying critters.

pedxing

#11

I think one of the critical points for oposition to the Remmington? Wind Farm is not that it could be viewed from the AT, but more importantly that it will be built on one of the highest, un-roaded, un-trailed, and unique mountain areas on the entire north eastern seaboard of North America. The subalpine ecosystem will be greatly impacted by the roads built to the windmills, particularly rare vegetation and the Bicknells Thrush. The project is an economic pit as well, and the company, in my opinion has, no idea what it would take to build such a complex on a rocky, boreal-forested mountain in Maine that is over 4000ft. I think some places should be left alone, maybe even absent of trails. Build the windmills somewhere else. STOP driving, walk more.

The Hemlock Muppet