Wind towers construction approved

SANDY RIVER PLANTATION – As a prelude to the possible construction in Maine of hundreds of electricity-producing wind turbines, the state’s top land-use agency on Wednesday approved the construction of 10 meteorological towers in two counties.

Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission, which serves as the planning board for the state’s unorganized territories, agreed to let Freeport-based Linekin Bay Energy Co. erect two 164-foot towers, or poles, in Aroostook County potato fields. The approved tower sites are in Hamlin and Cyr Plantation, both of which abut Van Buren to the south.

Christian Herter, president of Linekin Bay, said Wednesday during a phone interview that the firm already has approval to erect identical meteorological towers in Frenchville, Grand Isle and St. Agatha. Company representatives plan to appear Nov. 16 before the Fort Kent planning board to get approval to erect a sixth tower in that municipality, he said.

Linekin Bay is interested in constructing a 500-megawatt wind farm somewhere in northern Aroostook County, according to Herter. He said such a facility might require 300 turbines if it were built today but that advances in technology over the next few years might reduce the number of turbines needed to generate the same amount of power.

There was no objection to the Linekin Bay proposal at the LURC meeting, held at the Saddleback Mountain ski resort, but there was some opposition to the other meteorological tower proposal considered by the board.

Friends of the Boundary Mountains unsuccessfully pressured LURC to hold a public hearing on whether to allow TransCanada to erect eight meteorological towers in Franklin County. According to Elizabeth Swain, a Maine-based spokeswoman for TransCanada, each tower would be less than 200 feet tall with the tallest being 197 feet.

The Canadian energy company has said that in a few years, if the proposed sites turn out to be suitable for wind power, it could end up constructing 200 wind turbines, each over 300 feet tall, on four mountain tops near the Quebec border in Kibby, Merrill, and Skinner townships.

TransCanada, a 55-year-old firm based in Calgary, Alberta, last year had assets valued at $22 billion, company officials have said.

A California company called Kenetech proposed in 1994 to erect more than 600 turbines in the same Franklin County townships and eventually received all the necessary permits from the state to do so. The financially-troubled company went bankrupt before it could start construction, however.

Pamela Prodan, a Wilton attorney representing the Friends group, told LURC commissioners that some questions should be answered before TransCanada erects the testing towers.

She said the towers should be permitted separately rather than as a group because roads will have to be built to access some of them. She also said liability issues should be clarified in case an accident occurs.

“I think it’s a big question,” Prodan said. “Who has liability if the towers blow down as they did 10 years ago with the Kenetech project?”

Plum Creek owns the land where the turbines would be constructed but General Electric owns the wind-power rights to the property, which it is transferring to TransCanada, company officials said.

Terry Bennett, director of TransCanada’s wind energy division, objected to a suggestion by Prodan that there was conflicting information in the company’s application to the state.

“We put a lot of work into putting this application together,” Bennett said. “We don’t believe there is any contradictory information in here.”

Holding a public hearing on whether to allow the firm to erect the testing towers would be an “unnecessary delay” and “unprecedented,” Bennett added.

Marcia Spencer-Famous, senior planner with LURC, told commissioners that officials with state and federal wildlife agencies have indicated the testing towers will have no discernable impact on vegetation or wildlife in the area.

Despite the objections of Prodan and Vienna resident Robert Weingarten, who serves on FBM’s board of directors, the commission voted 4-3 to allow TransCanada to erect the testing towers without a public hearing.

If TransCanada applies to the state for approval to erect turbines, Spencer-Famous said after the vote, LURC most likely would hold several public hearings on that proposal.

Weingarten said after the meeting that he was disappointed the commission decided not to hold a public hearing on TransCanada’s tower application but that he is encouraged by the fact it was a split decision.

He said the Friends group will continue to air its concerns about the possible impacts of the towers and the turbines.

“It’s good to see some LURC commissioners see the intrinsic value of remote, high-mountain zoned areas,” he said.