Letter to the Editor: Aliens in the western mountains

2 mins read

A couple of weeks ago I went up on a mountain on the Dead River above Pierce Pond to check out an old trap line. I had sat up there many evenings over the years checking over my catches of beautiful marten and fisher that I had taken off the mountain before heading for home. The awe of the view of the on going mountains going to the Height of Land and the Canadian border has always been breath taking, especially so with the setting sun as a back drop. There has never been any thing more in the vista other than that which nature presented. Recent logging operations had caused the extension of an old familiar logging road, allowing me to drive out to a turn around where I could view this spectacle of nature from my truck.

As I sat there with my wife admiring what God had created in the oncoming evening, she said; look you can see wind turbines way over there on the mountain tops. They looked like a line of alien invaders marching across the face of the earth. I believe I counted 31 of them using my binoculars, with several more showing just their blades cutting in the back drop. I thought how horrible they looked. I then realized soon that they could also be behind us on the Highland, Lexington, and Concord Mountains laying to the south. As I thought of the view before me, I was deeply and emotionally saddened. I thought of my forefathers that had been hunting and trapping these grand old mountains of New England since the days of the French & Indian Wars. I think that they would feel the shame that I was experiencing on what man could do in just a short period of time to what took millions of years to create. Here was a view that only God could create being marred by man. What a shame.

Dave Miller
Lexington TWP, ME

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

26 Comments

  1. What is the alternative, more coal/nuclear power plants? Maybe if we were not such power hungry society, we would not have to be destroying our beautiful lands to feed out power needs, just imagine the consumption when we all start driving electric vehicles

  2. None of the beautiful planet will be around for our grandchildren if we keep relying on fossil fuels and polluting the earth. These turbines harness the earth’s natural resource, rather than causing global warming…guess as long as you have your view that’s all that matters, though.

  3. Have you ever been to Kentucky to see the strip mines, or the hydralic mining in West Virginia, Or the copper mines out west. The marshlands and fishing grounds in Gulf will never be the same. Nobody wants nuclear in Maine or New England for that matter. People fight the hydro dam projects and on and on.

    I see you drove to the site to see the view, I assume you used gas to get there. The road was carved out of the wilderness as where all roads in Maine. The fourfathers you refer to desemated the forests of Maine to create farm land in the 1800’s. If you don’t think so just look at any of the photographs taken around Maine in the 1880’s.

    One of the leading objectors to Wind Power in my area lives across the valley from me. His lights are on all night every night and have been for the last 20+ years. Harnessing the wind makes more sense than burning Coal or oil and depleating Earths resources. Conserving energy is the real answer.

  4. Funny how you mention the road cut into the beautiful forest and the gas powered truck you drove to see the sights. A little irony there? If you had to count them with binoculars, stop complaining.

  5. Why is it that almost NEVER does anyone even mention reduced consumption or even just conservation? I realize a couple of the responses hinted at it (props to anonymous #3) but the main theme in each of the responses so far is to attack the original poster rather than the concern expressed. Sheesh–is there any hope for understanding of the situation?

  6. You lost me with the words trapline.

    I’m reminded of a logger who righteously told me he loved the woods and just because he was using his skidder like a bumper car should not be considered evidence to the contrary. Over the next summer my wife and I hauled out garbage sacks full of empty bar and chain oil containers, soda and beer cans, and styrofoam coffee cups.

    I’ll weep with you for the lost view when you told me you ate a fisher to keep from starving or needed the marten’s fur to stay warm.

  7. Subsidized wind power is certainly not the answer; check your power bill and let us know how it’s working out for ya. Instead of drilling wells, calling it spring water and trucking it half way accross the country let’s find a new use for water. Maybe it’s just science fiction, but I heard once that flowing water could produce electricity.

  8. Dave,
    It’s tragic, but most people have lost all connection to the land. They’ve also lost the ability to connect the most basic of dots where industrial wind is concerned. I feel your pain, and so does God, for if God is anywhere, He’s in the mountains.

  9. do you know how many other power plants, biomass plants, dams (hyrdo-electric and otherwise,) and other assorted “eyesores” litter the state of maine? does it make you tear up to consider that they occupy once pristine land? did you have a similar breakdown when less than a hundred miles away the maine yankee plant was built on land once covered with king pines, long ago deforested, farmed and reforested? you say your forefathers enjoyed hunting and trapping. i’m confident that the reason they chose this region for their pursuits was for the abundance of resources that had yet to be exploited. game, fish, timber, farmland… you think they would feel shame to know that they could harness electricity from the wind as well? rubbish. consider the alternatives. and had you moseyed up them hills on old paint, i might not be so hard on you.

  10. The devastation to these mountains will be more significant than the logging roads that are there now. Apparently, it’s going to take critical mass in more visible areas before folks start to understand the impact. Saddleback (next to Bald Mtn) in Carthage, Dixfield, Canton, Woodstock, Rumford, Roxbury and any other community the wind companies can get a foothold…these massive structures are coming to a ridgeline near you. To your favorite hunting ground, above the lake of your family’s camp or year-round home, in close proximity to some of your favorite hikes.

    I’m tired of repeating the facts about wind power. How it won’t get us off foreign oil, how conservation and winterizing would do more (and create more jobs), how we heat our homes and fuel our cars with oil not wind power. It seems Mr. Miller took a moment to note just how different western Maine will look if all projects are approved. Folks don’t seem to realize just how many projects are in the works in this area and those are just the ones we know about. Most of these projects came through the back door–known about for a year or more by selectmen and land owners well before other residents. Can’t blame the guy for pausing to reflect on what’s to come.

  11. Well, the upside of the windmills peppering our state is that it will be out of the running for a National Park!

  12. Stll, I ask the same question to anyone here that I have asked for months now without an answer. Where will we as a state get the power we will need in the near future if nobody wants to burn coal,oil,gas, or use wind or hydro? We are going to need MORE power in the near future, not less. Conserving is great, but it wont solve the problem we have any more than keeping your tire pressure in your car optimized will solve importing foreign oil.(obama) The enviro wackos want to close down Vermont yankee, a nuke plant that produces 650 MEGAWATTS of power.Does anyone here understand how much power that is? Where will we get the power to replace this? Compact fluorescent light bulbs? Solar power? Come on. We are shutting down all our nuke plants just when we finally have the technology to make them bulletproof reliable. We are taking all our hydro dams out. Cant have the fish straining to get up a fish ladder. Nobody wants wind for many reasons, some good and some bad. Cant burn oil or gas. Where will we get the power from??? Anyone? My guess is Quebec hydro. Now thats showing our independant, stand on our own 2 feet , control our own destiny spirit isnt it?

  13. But Obama told you that these were good for you. They are green energy projects that will save our economy. This is very unpatriotic of you to criticize your President, General Electric, and Goldman Sachs with your doubts. Remember, they are doing this for you.

  14. While I understand the sentiment, I suppose the view was also different when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Things change.

    One thing I do object to is people assuming they have some ownership of a “view”. It is someone else’s land, and they may do with it what is legal. If you want to preserve the view, buy the land that creates it.

    How many times do I hear someone living in a semi-rural subdivision complaining about a developer wanting to build homes on land they use for recreation. It’s not their land – they were fortunate to have free use of it while they did. The State has parks and other recreational areas open to all – use them. Your house was built on undeveloped land in the first place.

  15. There are more ways to create electricity than just wind,hydro, or fossil fuels. and it is right in front of us. As a matter of fact this system has been around since Walt Disney created one for his empire. this system can run without fuel,create enough electricity to power itself and then put back 10 times to the grid. This system can get you to work at over 150 miles per our with a very low db rate. This system will create 10s of thousands of jobs in all sectors of business trades. This system can be built on existing land that has been cleared of trees for years. This system has been used in some parts of the US, Europe and now Asia for years. This system can be financed through Rider owned options, and key investors,such as GM<FORD MOTOR<AND CHRYSLER, The polluting Amtrac system will be taken off line to make room for our new National Monorail System in which Amtrac will be another key investor. I can save the earth with this Idea can you? More to come

  16. 1. we do not need them in Maine
    2. they are only 11=20% capacity
    3. oil,coal,gas are online at all time
    4. transmission lines
    5. stimilus funded. $ goes to Europe
    6. “scenic views” nets us millions in tourism.
    7. housing development (vacation homes) can be solar powered ) on site
    8. The making of a wind mill creates a carbon footprint never to be erased by that mill.

  17. Steve P–sprawl has certainly changed the landscape without question. I guess I see the scale of an industrial wind project as a little different, particularly in some of these settings. Trees coming and going over the years due to harvesting or making room for farmland is a little different from the installation of 400+ foot turbines on a high ridge. They will dominate the landscape in a way that a house lot does not. If a mountaintop such as Saddleback in Carthage were to be developed in this way, you’re looking at significant blasting. You can’t put a mountain back together again. I would much rather see it preserved and continue the very famous and historic hike up Bald right over to Saddleback. That Weld area already attracts thousands of tourists every year to hike close-by mountains such as Tumbledown, Mt. Blue, etc. Laugh at tourism but it’s a major contribution to our economy.

    All I’m saying is, once these things go up, they’re not coming down. Better be sure that this is really what we want. Do you think the people of southern Maine would allow these built right off shore from their favorite beaches? There is a reason why small, rural and often unorganized towns have been targeted. These projects have been fast tracked by the current administration and if you think it’s for the promise of green energy, you are mistaken. Follow the money.

  18. Alice, your “only 11-20%” of capacity argument is the same one Augusta’s brain trust made years ago when they took out the Edwards dam. “Well, this dam only makes 1.0% of the total electricity we use. so it needs to go” What kind of logic is this? EVERY power generator makes up only a small percentage of what we use. So the politicians, S.A.M., trout unlimited, and a bunch of other entities banded together and made a really dumb decision. Lets remove a 140 year old, 15 megawatt dam, (that was trying to get a permit to make 22 m/w), and the river will be full of salmon, trout, and pull in millions in revenue from sportsmen. Gee wiz, guess what? No salmon, no hoards of fishermen or boaters, and no electricity.And no tax dollars from the dam.Way to look ahead huh? Now, more and more of our old oil and coal plants will come offline, and the nuke plant mentioned earlier, and whatever else will be abandoned in the years to come, will need to be replaced by something. What? Another thing, Dams are easy to throttle back, or up as power is needed, oil ,gas , and coal plants like to run at 100% capacity.I have no idea how Mr. Barretts mono rail makes power? How does that work? Getting GM, and Chrysler to pony up money should be easy however, since they are owned by the fed. Ford on the other hand , probably not.I doubt. Ford would participate, they are too smart to fall for that.Probably why they didnt need a fed bail-out and are making a good profit.

  19. The blasting for the Rollins project has already cracked 4 foundations. I guess nobody in Augusta cares what happens to the people living nearby. The supporters of windsprawl are either financially benefitting from the turbines or simply do not care about the great Maine outdoors. The property owners who claim they have rights to do whatever they want are mistaken. As long as they receive “tree growth” tax breaks they have an obligation to the general public who are making up for the taxes they do not pay. Give us a break. Maine does not need windsprawl. We make 30% more elec. than we use. With 16 new coal fired power plants started since 2008 and 16 more soon to start, any imagined C02 saving from wind are lost in the new coal smog. Assuming the wind industry would lower C02 emissions( which they would not) there is no sense in building windsprawl if you are still building coal fired plants. Stop the illogical arguments. Wind turbines are not green with more C02 emissions to build than they could ever save. That is not even figuring the C02 from shipping them from China and Brazil or the cement and rebar C02 contribution. Anyone who still thinks windsprawl is green hasn’t been paying attention. It is a scam.

  20. Windsprawl is spreading like cancer. Maine does not need this newest version of Enron energy trading corruption. Windsprawl is a scam and the developers are just gaming the system.

  21. Dave I know how you feel. Also I am running a line up that way for fisher and marten.
    Steve P you do realize it is our money they are using to buy there land and build there windmills to sell us power. If any other business in Maine tried to do this everyone would call them crooks. If a wind company used there own money to buy the land and build windmills I would not complain but they are using my money to destroy my view and to sell me power. If you haven’t gotten the bent over a barrel feeling yet let me explain it different. I will come and cut your firewood for you. You pay me a $1000 up front and I will cut the wood off your land and charge you $150 per cord of cut and split wood. Plus I will give you $50 for every cord I sell to someone else. But of the $50 you give back $45 for maintance of my equipment. If you think that is a good deal I can start on Monday.

    I give that as an example because that is basically what the windmills are doing.

  22. what’s wrong with the power generated by our local power-plants (Stratton & Livermore)? they use wood chips, scrap left over from the woodsmen to create energy. Seems like a win-win to me. Also, if we did away with daylight savings time, wouldn’t we then use less energy? while on the subject…I thought monoploy’s were illegal in this country? why isn’t there competition to CMP?

  23. Hope you enjoyed the rest of the Dead River. Oh! that is under the man made Flagstaff Lake, which the Highland anti wind group is touting as part of the nayural scenic splendor.

  24. I am proud to say that Dave Miller is my husband; and I am in total agreement with his views of blasting away our mountains to erect rows upon rows of wind turbines across our state’s mountains. I am equally proud to say that I became a member of the group “Friends of the Highland Mountains” about a year ago after becoming aware of the facts that wind turbines are truly not a form of “green” energy and that wind energy has to be heavily subsidized. That said, I think all of you people who want wind power to become part of our heritage here in Maine need to spend some time examining “the facts” for yourselves about the reliability and consistency of wind turbine energy output. You don’t have to look far to see the folly of wind power. And you most certainly do not need to rely on information from any of the groups that have formed all around the state to try to block wind power, although they would be happy to point you in the right direction. You can look it up for yourself on the internet or read about it in books. Only fools stick their heads in the sand and depend on their elected officials to look out for their own best interests. Green talks, especially the “green” lining our politicians pockets when they play us for the fools that we are when we don’t take the time to research and ask pertinent questions, and when we rely on them for the “truth.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.