Despite concerns, BEP official endorsed

AUGUSTA – Despite allegations that he is anti-Bangor Hydro, Irving Faunce was unanimously endorsed for another term on the Board of Environmental Protection by the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday.

Concerns about Faunce’s nomination surfaced earlier this month when he announced at a BEP meeting that Gov. Angus King had told him attorneys for the power company had opposed his service on the board because he was hostile to business, especially their client.

Faunce made the comments at the start of three days of public hearings on an application from Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. to build a new 84-mile power line across the woods of eastern Maine. That application is still pending before the board, although earlier this week most BEP members said they favored alternate routes that would take advantage of existing utility corridors. At the meeting, other board members expressed much more hostility toward the project than did Faunce.

Although no one testified against Faunce’s nomination Tuesday morning, Natural Resources Committee member Sen. Tom Sawyer, R-Bangor, said he received telephone calls from two Bangor area businesses that opposed the nomination of Faunce, a nursing home administrator from Kennebunkport.

Sawyer said the sources expressed concerns about the BEP taking too long to approve projects. Specifically, he said, they were upset because Faunce and other board members voted to delay a meeting on the Bangor Hydro project to accommodate the vacation of the attorney for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, which intervened in the process.

Faunce said the board agreed to reschedule the meeting because the attorney had long-standing plans to sail to Norway. Plus, he added, others involved in the process also planned to take vacations during that time.

“It did not slow down the board process,” he said.

Rep. Richard Crabtree, R-Hope, who has 30 years in the utility business, said such a delay would never have been tolerated in the business world. Deliberations on an urgent project should not be delayed to accommodate a vacation, he added.

Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, asked Faunce whether Bangor Hydro objected to rescheduling the meeting. Faunce said he did not recall that there was much discussion of the request.

BEP Chairman John Tewhey, who testified on Faunce’s behalf, added that another meeting was rescheduled to accommodate the vacation of a Bangor Hydro attorney.

Sawyer said he was still troubled by the delay because “the applicant should be the one to say speed up or slow down” the process.

Martin, the Senate chair of the committee, said some people in northern Maine had concerns about Bangor Hydro’s application because it appeared to be an attempt to cut a lot of trees rather than using an existing corridor. In addition, he said, it appeared that people attempted to put pressure on members of the BEP to affect the application.

Two other members of the public also testified in support of Faunce. They praised him for raising four children of his own, then adopting three more; for his years of public service as a school board member, as mayor of Gardiner and as a member of the Maine Human Rights Commission; and for his willingness to review voluminous material to come up with a balanced decision.

Despite the talk of opposition and concerns, all 13 members who were present for the meeting voted in favor of Faunce’s nomination to a four-year term on the board. The nomination still must be approved by the Senate.