From: Sayer, Suzanne CIV PORTS, 2340 [mailto:suzanne.sayer@navy.mil] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 12:14 PM
To: Spencer-Famous, Marcia; SAFItts@midmaine.org
Cc: RJenningsm@aol.com; MKearns@upcwind.com; Giffen, Alec
Subject: Richard's Comment
 
Marcia, Matt, Alec, and Stacey,
 
I know the talk about Red, Amber, Green, Blue, Black or whatever zones is all an attempt to gain "consensus".  Alec is doing a tremendous job on this panel and I want to congratulate him on it!  Everytime there is a new article on Climate Change it stresses the fact that the findings from the 3rd IPCC estimates of change are much too small.  Even the changes predicted by the 4th IPCC are accelerating much faster than what was anticipated.   
 
To me this whole wind power task force process starting on July 20th has been what Alec calls a Charrette.  As I understand a Charette - a quick  attempt to get something done that we all know needs doing, but not all of us see the same urgency.   We need to get at the regulations that are hindering wind power development.  For instance we need to build the power transmission lines from the resource to the people like what was done for hydropower.  In the 1930's when FDR started rural electrification he took the electricity along the roads to the people.  In those days you could transport coal by rail and people lived near railroads. With the automobile and 4 wheel drives nowadays people live where ever they want and can get to.  We need to use the resource where it is.  Work on the legislation to provide electric corridors.  Work on ways to avoid impediments.  Keep the 3 acre and 20 acre environmental triggers in DEP areas.  
 
Home rule as practice in Maine and New England has no place in where Wind Power should be developed.  The Planet is our Home, our only Home.  It is the only place that we know life exists and we need to protect the air, and the water and the climate.  The plants and animals that inhabit it will change as they always have. They migrate, become extinct, etc.  But the Planet needs to live.   I think we need to start fresh on wind power.  State all the positives, state a few restrictions (vernal pools, known flyzones/ways and open up all of Maine to windpower - maybe for every 4 MW built on the land we need to encourage 1 MW off shore until it becomes economically viable and accepted.  The geology of Maine offshore is not at all similar to the geology offshore on the Cape.  It will be much more technicallly challenging and therefore expensive to put in turbines on the rocky ridge coast than on a submerged sand outwash plane.
 
Richard, Matt and Representative Fitts are correct.  Climate change will not abide by the Red Zones.  In fact the Red Zones if they are drawn up along the subalpine SA-2 habitat will probably disappear fastest.  Any Red Zone should be revisited every 3 years - but unintended consequences might move the zone of distress to SA-3 or maybe out of Subalpine altogether.  How do you draw a red zone?  Like Matt Kearns said if you make a Green Zone then the price of the land may escalate.  And as Representative Fitts says if you say you want to zone land for apartments or dense housing, the owners of the property may not conform with your wishes. 
 
I think the best practical process is to have a statute saying that wind is welcome every where, but these 10 mountains or something.  However, Cadillac Mountain should have a wind turbine on it.  It has a road, it has a snack area, it had a hotel.  It is the first place that sees the sunrise.  It should have a wind turbine on it.  National Parks are not all pristene - far from it.  Many are there to conserve wilderness, provide recreation and educate the masses.  They draw people and they are often overcrowded, but they provide a destination and allow other areas to be less impacted.  Let people get close up to the wind turbine on Cadillac Mtn  and see what the future will be.  The turbine can be taken down as was the hotel.  The Mtn. Cadillac Turbine could be a beacon that the US does care about the Global energy predicament.  
 
If the rules were bent in the 20th Century to allow ski areas for recreation, then wind farms should be allowed to have their own regulations because they are going to save human health and well being as well as the Planet's health.  We should have thought about the health of these areas in the 70's -1870's when we had time to work on them rather than let the areas be managed by timber companies with no interest in avoiding vernal pools and conserving nature.  Its getting late now.  The only thing I think the Chinese have right as a policy is to limit population growth or actually decrease it.  The US needs to find ways to grow the economy with out growing population.   We can grow green buildings and green products! 

Suzanne Sayer, PhD