LINCOLN – Planning board Chairman Peter Phinney will review a proposed $120 million wind farm for Rollins Mountain when it is submitted despite working for one of its benefactors and the board will not pursue a moratorium that would delay the project.

Board members made those decisions during a 21/2-hour meeting at Mattanawcook Academy late Tuesday. Representatives from wind farm proponent First Wind of Massachusetts and the Friends of Lincoln Lakes residents’ group were among 40 people attending.

First Wind representatives said they would file permit applications with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection by Nov. 7 and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by Nov. 21. First Wind hopes to build 40 1.5-megawatt windmills, each more than 300 feet tall, in Burlington, Lincoln, Lee and Winn, creating as much as 60 megawatts of electricity through Evergreen Wind Power, a First Wind subsidiary.

The Friends group argued for a moratorium and against what they say would be the wind farm’s harmful impact upon the aesthetics, land values and health of residents. It would destroy Lincoln’s pastoral nature and its ability to draw tourists who enjoy its waters and woods, they said.

“Why are we rushing into this? This is a huge project coming into a region that bills itself as the land of 13 lakes,” said group member Susan Custis, a Transalpine Road resident. “Why are we rushing so much on something that most people know nothing about?”

One member, Harry Epp of Folsom Pond Road, gave the board a copy of testimony a New York doctor gave to the New York State Legislature’s Energy Committee in 2006 claiming that some residents have suffered from sleep deprivation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, exhaustion, depression and tinnitus because of the noise and light flickering caused by massive wind turbines like those First Wind wants to build.

A First Wind spokesman did not immediately return telephone messages and e-mails seeking comment on the health claims on Wednesday. First Wind has said its projects, including a wind farm in Mars Hill, abide by all DEP regulations.

Epp described windmills as “a complex, controversial subject, misunderstood and under investigation.” He said the board should support a moratorium to give residents and board members time to better understand what First Wind is proposing.

“I would like to see these things put on hold for three or four years until the technology makes it possible to locate these things offshore,” group member Michael DiCenso said.

Other audience members praised First Wind as a conscientious creator of wind power, which generates electricity without pollution. They said the company’s investment in the area would decrease taxes, create more industry and jobs and provide its towns with funding it can invest in infrastructure improvements and economic development.

Resident Ryan Ward said he will have wind turbines almost in his backyard and welcomes them. Private landowners have a right to have wind turbines on their property if they wish to, he said.

Resident David Susen, on whose town farm three windmills would be built, said his family will get great financial benefit from the project, but so would the rest of town.

“In my opinion, [windmills] are not ugly at all. They are very cool,” Susen said. “All this talk about the noise they make is all innuendo. … It would be really a shame that a small group of people would use innuendo to drive a company like this out of our town. We as a town should be rolling out the red carpet for them.”

Board Vice Chairman B. Michael Ireland, a land-use permitting environmental consultant, said a moratorium such as the board would consider would only delay the project six months, not eliminate it.

“We have to see what they want to do in order to judge it properly,” said Ireland, who is not related to Town Council member Michael Ireland.

Planning board members readily admitted they didn’t have any experience dealing with windmill turbines, but said it would be their responsibility to learn. Also, the board will rely upon Maine DEP to evaluate the project’s environmental impact, Ireland said.

With Phinney abstaining, the board voted 6-0 to approve his evaluating First Wind’s application, despite his being a real estate agent employed by H.C. Haynes Inc. of Winn, which owns land on which many First Wind turbines are proposed to be built.

Phinney said he would not receive any direct benefit from the project or his employer, as required under Maine General Statutes. Board members accepted his statements without comment.

An Upper Pond camp owner, Rainer Egle, 45, of Russikon, Switzerland, earlier this week said Phinney should recuse himself from First Wind deliberations because he believed that Phinney’s employment presented a conflict of interest or at least an appearance of impropriety.

He and other Friends group members said they are suspicious of the company given that it is being investigated by the New York State Attorney General’s Office for possible improper relationships with elected officials in that state.

The company has said that it has cooperated fully with the Attorney General’s Office.

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