State Regulators Approve Permit for Maine's Fourth Major Wind Project (50 MW)

[jpak]

http://www.mpbn.net/News/MaineNews/tabid/181/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3475/ItemId/8805/Default.aspx

Among the project's developers are former state governor Angus King, and Rob Gardiner, the former head of Maine Public Broadcasting, who also directed the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

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Those benefits, says the DEP's Andy Fisk, include free power. "The applicants have proposed that the local ratepayers within the town of Roxbury would be receiving, I believe it is, 500 kilowatts of electricity free each month for the next 20 years. So that's an immediate tangible local benefit that was proposed by the developers, as required by the authorizing statute."

The project's also expected to create local employment opportunities - jobs to the value of $28 million, according to the DEP's information sheet, although no specific job numbers were mentioned.

These incentives though are not enough to win over some residents. "Right now what we see is a pristine mountain range across the pond, and now what we're going to have to look at is 22 wind turbines with a strobing red light on every other one," says Chris Durant, who lives on Garland Pond in Roxbury

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