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CHAIN OF PONDS TOWNSHIP – A 197-foot meteorological tower on Sisk Mountain in northern Franklin County has partially collapsed, with the company that owns the tower saying a guy wire snapped.
A representative of the Canadian-based energy company TransCanada, which erected the tower in August 2009, said that the project team had confirmed that the structure had partially collapsed. The damaged tower, which consists of a single pole, equipped with sensors and 12 guy wires, is undergoing repairs.
“We confirmed with our project team that a guy wire snapped, damaging the meteorological tower,” TransCanada Spokesperson Terry Cunha said Thursday. “It didn’t affect our ability to collect data and repairs are underway.”
TransCanada successfully applied for the permit necessary to site the tower from the Land Use Regulation Commission in August, looking for additional wind speed data on Sisk Mountain. The company has announced that it is interested in expanding the 44-turbine wind farm on Kibby Mountain and Kibby Range, slated for completion in the summer of 2010 in the more-easterly Kibby Township. As things stand now, the $100 million expansion proposal would add 15 three-megawatt turbines onto Sisk Mountain.
The Friends of the Boundary Mountains, who have opposed both TransCanada and other companies’ projects in northern Franklin County, cited the collapsed tower as a reason to not approve turbines on Sisk Mountain.
“How are we expected to believe that the Sisk Mountain site will support industrial wind turbines when a meteorological tower wasn’t able to survive one Maine winter?” FBM member Ryan Clarke said in a prepared statement released by the organization. “It is clear that the weather is too harsh to support this technology, we have to heed these warnings.”
FBM also rejected TransCanada’s statement about the damaged tower’s ability to collect data.
“How can LURC make a decision on a wind power project when the data submitted is from a faulty tower? Finding the collapsed tower only hardens our view that this project should not go forward,” FBM member Dick Fecteau said, in the same statement. “At a minimum, the review process needs to start anew and, frankly, the proposed project should be canceled altogether.”
TransCanada’s application to install the tower, filed with LURC, indicates the company is responsible for removing the equipment once its data-gathering is complete. The total cost of installing and removing the tower, along with conducting geotechnical borings, was estimated at $125,000.
ITS GEORGE BUSH’S FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Darn, (yes I wanted to use another adjective) Gorby birds …..
HAHAHA!!! The Friends of the Boundary Mountains really need to have some common sense. The data collection tower is likely 100 times weaker than an “industrial” wind turbine. Arguing that the damage is proof of for no trubines is just plain IDIOTIC. Additionally, even if there was a gap in data due to the damage, this is not reason for objection by the LURC, in fact I doubt they care.
Wind energy is providing jobs and money to Maine during bad economic times and should be encouraged. A Maine company is doing the construction and hiring hundreds of Franklin County workers. Wind power is something Maine needs to exploit!
I’m a big fan and proponent of wind power in general, Farmtown Engineer, but this entire project was vastly under-engineered. It is no surprise that their research tower went down, and the big turbine project on Kibby is in even bigger trouble (contrary to what the company may say). If you don’t believe it is bad spend a little time talking to the folks who are doing the work. The winds are routinely exceeding the max specs by 25-50mph, and the icing during storms is drastically over estimates with some lines have 5-10″ diameter icing. It won’t be long before we hear about some things coming down up there, too.
Again, I support wind power and this project. But this project was poorly conceived, under built and bound to generate as much bad press as it does electricity. It should have been locally/regionally engineered and built…instead we have outsourced this resource to a company that is probably a major contributor to the bad press that wind power gets, and are sending the long-term profits (if any) out of state and out of the USA.
Correction: guide wires are used in hospitals during surgical procedures. guy wires are used to stabilize towers.
You are welcome Ben I noticed you made the correction in your story.
Kibby Mt. wind site is a disaster. Sprawling industrial wind sites like these destroy more environment in the false name of “green energy” than any good the pittance of power from wind will ever do. This is pure, reckless folly concocted by the descendants of Enron Wind and perpetrated by lobbyists. Big Wind/Big Lie. The same Big Lie tactics as used by the Third Reich. We should know better.
As far as Sisk Mt. is concerned, take down the met tower and leave the area alone! Trans Canada has done too much degradation to the Boundary mtns already. LURC even giving one minute of consideration to destroying Sisk Mt. is a travesty. Chain of Ponds is a special place. We spent millions of dollars of bonded taxpayer money to preserve this area as Public Reserved Land. It is the epitome of hypocrisy to turn around and surround it with huge, industrial machines set on d ridgelines. The same goes for the Bigelow Preserve, now threatened by Angus King’s Highland project, Tumbledown Mt., threatened by Angus King’s Record Hill project and two Patriot Renewables proposals, the entire Mahoosuc Preserve, threatened by Record Hill and Patriots Renewables Spruce Mt. project, and over in eastern Maine, the Grand Lakes, Duck Lake, and Nicatous Preserves threatened by First Wind.
We are destroying this beautiful state with this misguided support for an industry that wouldn’t exist without deep government subsidies and is an unreliable, unpredictable, inefficient producer of high cost electricity. Stop this madness! Save Sisk Mt.!
If anyone still believes that windsprawl will solve either the energy problem or reduce CO2 they just haven’t been paying attention. Denmark, for instance, has thousands of windturbines. Their fossil fuel use has increased,CO2 increased 35%, their electric rates have doubled and the whole scheme is falling apart. France has begun shutting down their windturbines at night so people can sleep. Why would Maine follow the same path? Again, any supporters probably have a financial stake in ruining Maine’s mountains. Is the money really that important, that you would sacrifice Maine’s scenery and public health? Then again some people have no scruples or anything resembling morals. The Federal Stimulus Money would be better spent on job retraining than given away as freebies to the execs at FirstWindSprawl,LLC to pay for their ever mounting legal bills. I wonder if we could impeach Baldacci for failing to protect the citizens health and willfully and knowingly allowing Expedited Process to trample the environmental rules and regs while disallowing public process?