The Forecaster has done an excellent job regularly informing its readers about the wind power debate in Maine.

I stand proudly with the courageous Mainers who have been stepping forward to stop the destructive industrialization of Maine’s mountains by out of state companies. Without massive taxpayer subsidies, First Wind of Massachusetts and TransCanada to the north, would not be devastating Maine’s precious mountain tops and ridge lines. These taxpayer-subsidized corporations are first and foremost out to get millions of our federal tax dollars. They are tearing apart Maine’s fragile mountain ecology with false promises driven by greed.

Maine is not South Dakota or the Texas plains where the wind blows hard and strong much of the time. Industrial wind is absolutely wrong for our mountains and is the wrong clean energy choice for Maine. Much of our housing stock is poorly insulated and as a result, a community based, state-wide energy efficiency project would be the very best and most cost effective way for Maine to significantly reduce its consumption of fossil fuels. We can insulate every home and business in Maine, while creating thousands of jobs, and for a much lower cost than taxpayer subsidized industrial wind. We can then avoid the terrible environmental cost of tearing up our mountains with an unneccasary and destructive industrial wind scheme. Every citizen who treasures our beautiful mountain landscape should speak up against this taxpayer-subsidized, corporate assault. Together, we can stop it. We must not devastate Maine’s mountains or any other special place in order to save it. If Mainers allow this corporate assault on our mountains to continue, we will be filled with regret for what we have lost. 

We must stop industrial wind right now, invest instead in an effective energy efficiency campaign and preserve the Maine we love. 

Robert Goldman

South Portland