TEMPLE – No, thanks, was the overwhelming answer voiced by residents attending a pitch by an energy company to install between 12 and 25 wind turbines along a ridge on the western side of town.
About 50 residents listened as project developers for Renewable Energy Systems America, Inc., or RES, described the process to build and the economic benefits of installing a large wind farm here. The energy company and two landowners expressed an interest in developing a wind farm along a ridge of mountain tops in west Temple and, although aware of the town’s ordinance prohibiting industrial wind farms, they wanted to see if perhaps residents had changed their minds and would be open to the idea now. Selectmen scheduled a public information meeting to discuss the issue Monday night with four representatives with RES.
There isn’t a project currently in development in Temple, but “you have great potential for wind power and we want to at least ask the question,” explained Dan Boyd, a RES senior director for project development. “If the answer is the ordinance is good, there are other places to explore the idea with.”
Years ago an energy company was interested installing a large wind farm along the same six-mile ridge in Temple. Residents responded by approving temporary moratoriums forbidding industrial wind power development until an ordinance was created and approved by voters at town meeting three years ago. The ordinance essentially prohibits all industrial-size wind power development by restricting the maximum height, noise level and electrical generation capacity of the turbines. Boyd said the wind turbine towers in the U.S. can reach 500 feet from ground to blade tip.
Selectman Austin Foss explained the board decided to hold the public meeting with RES to explore the idea of a wind power development once again despite an ordinance in place prohibiting it because “we thought it should be reviewed by the citizens of town to make sure that’s what you want.”
In answer to several questions asked by those attending, Boyd said, yes, there is a “limited visual impact, but with responsible siting, there are many benefits to the community.” Included are tax and other negotiated benefits such as some town road rebuilding and maintenance the company would provide in order to access the project’s area.
The power generated would first be offered locally and in Maine, but could be exported if it wasn’t needed or wanted. The land for the wind power development would be leased by its owners and public access would remain the decision of the landowners. The life of a turbine is between 20 and 30 years and its energy company owners would be responsible for all decommissioning costs.
Boyd said now with a few projects developed near here, most notably in Carthage, “maybe you’re seeing it’s not the end of the world.” The 12-turbine, 34.2 megawatt, Saddleback Ridge Wind Project in Carthage was completed in September 2015 by another energy company, Patriot Renewables of Quincy, Mass. “There are jobs created from the projects,” he said, by using local construction companies and a few employees who provide maintenance over the life of the turbines.
“The project is not going to provide benefits for very long. It’s like eating our seed corn. That’s what concerns me the most,” said Kathleen Lynch, a former selectman.
“For the record, please go away,” said Ben Milster, also a former selectman. “What does it take for you to go away,” he asked.
“If it’s not something you want we would go away,” Boyd responded and he added that based on the sentiments expressed, it seemed a likely prospect.
Resident Michael Romanyshyn said his family would have to look at the turbines “every single day.” He noted their night sky view would be obstructed by the lights at the top of the turbines. “I am totally against this and will fight it every step of the way.”
Counter to the meeting’s prevailing view, Ronald Rackliff, a member of the town’s budget committee, spoke of the benefits of having a wind power farm take up residence here. Taxpayers’ bills would be lower when the company helps fix some of the town’s roads and once the towers are installed more of the town’s overall tax burden would shift over to the energy company because of the increased valuation resulting from the development.
“I love this town so much,” resident Steve Kaiser said. Should the wind turbines be installed, no amount of money would be able to provide enough compensation for the quality of life he currently enjoys, he added and was roundly applauded.
For any industrial development to proceed, the town’s wind power ordinance would need to be amended or overturned by the majority of voters at a town meeting. The process to bring it to a town vote, according to the ordinance, is that a petition consisting of at least 10 percent of the number of voters in the previous gubernatorial election be filed and the registered voters verified as Temple residents by town officials.
At the gubernatorial election in 2014, a total of 279 Temple residents voted, which means a petition with 27 or 28 registered voters’ signatures would be required to bring the question of amending or repealing the wind power ordinance to the town meeting warrant. Selectmen Jean Mitchell said after the meeting that gathering signatures and verification would all have to be completed before the town meeting warrant goes to print in mid-February.
I am glad the Temple residents had the foresight to see through this wind farm proposal, Usually what happens is to accept whatever is offered by worldly companies and in the end we lose our most precious assets.
Good job Temple!
I live in Wilton across from the Carthage project. It is not “the end of the world” (love how these smarmy out of state developers have ZERO sense about what it means to live rurally). However, it is absolutely a giant change to look out on 40+ story, ugly towers after seeing nothing but hills and mountains. And the flashing red lights. Plus the environmental impact. It is a change to a certain way of life. They are a symbol of greed and laziness. We don’t need their welfare. These mountains should never be zoned industrial. The more projects we allow, the more that is all we will see in every direction. We don’t want to know what critical mass looks like.
Thank you, Temple, for showing these salesmen your values and that your/our way of life is priceless. And thank you, Daily Bulldog, for reporting accurately and with more detail than the Sun Journal.
Thanks to everyone that showed up last night to help politely deliver the “go away” message. One can only hope that will be last trip RES makes to Temple. While I can understand the desire for lower taxes, the negative impact of a wind development in Temple will far outlast the elderly gentleman who was suspiciously eager to have them built. They will outlast everyone who attended the meeting last night. Make the decision to preserve our mountains for your children, and their children. No road improvement, tax reduction, or smattering of jobs will outweigh the loss of beauty and quality of life Temple will suffer should this project move forward.
Temple Elvis
Great job Temple-ites for standing strong against big (wind) business. RES preaches “green” energy and the lack of pollution while carefully skating around the fact that these machines are big and dirty – nothing green about them. They also add considerable noise pollution and light pollution to our beautiful Maine skyline. I hate the fact that when I drive on 133 now, and look off towards that gorgeous old tree that used to stand alone like a sentry in the field, I now see those monstrous hunks of metal marching across the mountain tops in the distance. It looks Orwellian and surreal and just breaks my heart. If that happened to Temple, it would kill me. We put the ordinance in place for a reason. Let’s keep Temple just the way it is – a great place to live in peace and quiet and without big business.
Congratulations to the citizens of Temple. Don’t be misled by the greed of these landowners who care nothing of your health, safety and quality of life and are quick to sacrifice it for their own personal gain. Take it from someone who knows as a resident of Dixfield. Your taxes would only be reduced for 2 or 3 years before the state recognizes the new value, NO permanent jobs created, and Maine already produces ample energy so the destruction of your mountains would be for the export of energy to southern New England states. Hold your ground!
They say it will create more jobs but for who and how long? I am not a Temple resident but I am glad that they shut them down. Besides us Mainers are used to bad roads and high taxes……just saying.
If every town and unorganized territory understood, as the people of Temple do, what wind plants mean to your quality of life, and that of many future generations to come, this incomprehensible assault on Maine’s landscape would be dead in its tracks. The law allowing travesty to occur this was passed late in the session in 2008 at the behest of Gov. John Baldacci (who now is vice president of the international conglomerate formerly named Iberdrola that is proposing to build many more wind projects in Maine). Angus King used his “smooth operator” style to pave the way for his turbines in Roxbury, where he sold the people the so called benefits of wind power like a carnival pitchman. What an abomination has occurred to Roxbury Pond, and now Carthage, and Woodstock and soon Canton, possibly Dixfield and Rumford, not to mention many projects further down east. The western mountains will never be the same but the bleeding can be stopped by good people like the people of Temple. Congratulations on taking a stand!
As a Maine resident whose family has lived in Maine since the 1600s, I am very proud of the smart people of Temple who have told the out-of-state, foreign industrial wind company to go away and stay away. Industrial wind towers are a tragedy with no good value. They destroy property values, people’s health, visual beauty, birds and bats, public recreation, hunting, and tourism. It’s a corporate welfare scam that steals billions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money every year. If you want to learn more about the destruction of Maine by the out-of-state wind developers, go to the library and read my book, KILLING MAINE, which just won the New England Book Festival First Prize for Fiction. Congratulations to the good people of Temple!
Firstly, I want to thank our Planning Board (Yes, Selectmen, we do have one), and the good citizens of Temple who attended the meeting the other night. Your dedication and passion for preserving our way of life here in Temple is greatly appreciated.
Secondly, I just want to say do not let your guard down. I don’t think these big shots are going to fade away quietly into the night. My guess is that there will be an attempt to overturn our ordinance. I don’t think this is over yet. Keep your ears to the ground!
As they say, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings…Yes, I know she already did, but she may have to sing again… a little louder this time since our selectmen apparently didn’t hear her the fist time when the Planning Board drafted our ordinance and the good citizens of Temple approved it at Town Meeting. If they had, we wouldn’t have been there the other night.
Protect your neighbors, protect your environment, protect your quality of life. Say “NO” to Big Wind.
History shows that Stay Tuned is spot on.
The Sun Journal reporting leaves a lot to be desired on this issue. Obviously, the newspaper article did not portray a true picture of the meeting which was for RES to just go away and not come back. Also, landowners that have lived off our backs (by using tree growth welfare) now want to cash in on what is left up on the mountains. Is there no end to the greed?
Everyone keeps stating it will ruin the view. We need to start thinking about alternative energy for the future generations. Wind, Solar and Water. You can be a consumer (gas & oil) for your life time, but what about your grandchildren and future generations. If you drive up the Intervale Road in Temple currently all you see is bare mountains where the wood has been stripped. Take a good look at those stripped mountains, because most of that is not in Temple. The people that own that may have a Town that is willing to work with the windmill company and everyone will be looking at windmills anyways.That Town will reap the benefits lower taxes, better roads, etc.. Yes, maybe the wood will grow back, but NOT for many many years. I am a working citizen and I travel the roads in Temple everyday. I am sick of paying higher taxes and having roads that are falling apart. They keep patching and it doesn’t last. Unable to plow them properly, because they are so full of holes and bumps. Paying repairs to the suspensions of my vehicle due to the roads. I say let the windmills come to Town help us on our taxes and fix the roads, etc.
NIMBY’s
Franklinite- Not in ANYBODY’s backyard. Whose backyard they go in doesn’t change the fact that they are a BAD idea.
Temple Resident- if you took the time to attend the meeting the other night, you know it’s not all about the view,
To “Temple Resident”: Once the mountains have been destroyed with the swindle of Mega Industrial Wind Development, there is no getting them back. This devastation will be leaving your grandchildren and future generations a sad legacy – thanks largely to King and Baldacci and their corporate cohorts – similar to the wreckage left behind in Appalachia from mountaintop mining. A significant part of our economic future in this region is attracting visitors with our natural landscape and its many recreational assets and opportunities. Mega Industrial Wind Development is steadily eating away at the integrity of this resource which we need to sustain for our future economic well being, identity, and quality of life here.
To “Franklinite”: This is actually a case of “NIMT” – “Not In My Town”. The majority of Temple residents have wisely chosen not to sell themselves down the river with Mega Industrial Wind Development and become another lemming over the cliff like Carthage and other Towns that have chosen to do this to themselves. In spite of the State greasing the skids to promote this boondoggle, Maine remains a “Home Rule” State where Towns can thankfully choose their own destiny. We must use this autonomy to the fullest extent to conserve and continue what we value about the unique Town of Temple.
Smart people those Templetonians.
I think it would be premature to decry “the greed of the landowners”. RES approached Thorndyke and Currier, not the other way around. Neither were at the meeting to express their views. It could well be that it’s RES who have been pushing the agenda all the way.
Also, to be clear, RES was not told at the meeting to just go away. They were told that many at the meeting are happy with our ordinance as it stands, and under the ordinance they are not able to build 400′ towers. There may well be a petition circulated to request that a change to the ordinance be put on the Warrant for the March town meeting. The issue would then be voted upon and if the ordinance stands, RES would have to “just go away”.
If you think the wind farm project is wrong for Temple, don’t sign the petition if one comes along.
It was great to see the strong turnout with the majority saying “Not Welcome!” There is a process that the selectman are supposed to follow, but I question which side they are on. We need to “Stay Tuned”.
To “Temple Resident”, they are not going to fix our roads, the valuation goes up, our contributions go up, and they write off most of it. The roads they will fix/build are the roads they will use, and that is not in East Temple. If your vehicle is sustaining the damage you say – Slow Down! These mountains will forever be gone and we are stuck with the eye sore. Jobs, look at who is doing the work, not local. Yeah you might get a flagger, but otherwise they aren’t Temple residents getting jobs. I doubt very much you will see towers in Avon or Phillips as their ordinance is pretty strong. I may be wrong, but take a read sometime.
They say “only 12 to 25 towers”, but you can guarantee that they will put as many as possible to make profitable for them. If they can put 50, it will be 50. Remember the towers are getting bigger and there are some over 500 feet in Maine now. It is a huge outlay for them in infrastructure, but we are paying for it with our tax money (production tax credits) and they get other bennies. Wind Power is not profitable unless it was heavy subsidized.
To “Mountain Hugger” Have you seen the Glaciers that are melting or the holes that we are creating from the earth to supply our fossil fuel intake. Do you use gas & oil in your everyday life? Do you ever ask where it comes from? The consumers keep taking and taking from the earth and not giving back. We can stop taking if we open our eyes and consider using our natural resources of Wind, Water & Solar. Living in Temple we don’t see all the devastation that happens from fossil fuel intake. To me it worth sacrificing a some of our view in order for my grandchildren and future generation to be able to continue to breath good air.
To “Temple Resident”: The negative impacts of Industrial Wind outweigh by far it’s contribution to the overall energy mix. Also, when the wind isn’t blowing, the makeup power mostly comes from conventional sources which are not clean. In addition, why should Maine turn into a dumping ground for Industrial Wind when we already produce more energy than we consume? We’re mere pawns in a game that enriches a few while we get the crumbs.
Four years ago, Temple enacted it’s “Wind” Ordinance with broad support. Since then, all was good until a grid-scale wind developer (RES) decided to set it’s sights on the town. Now, all of the sudden we’re going to reconsider an ordinance that no one in Temple had any problem with in the intervening period. This type of reactive handling of the issue points out the need for a foundational guide for the Town – namely a Comprehensive Plan. Before tinkering with any existing ordinance, or enacting any new ordinance, such a plan needs to be adopted so there’s a framework and reference point for the future and its challenges.
J. Sounds to me like you are guessing who contacted who and they were told to just go away.
Also why did the Selectmen have this meeting when they already had an ordinance in place voted in by the residents of Temple which clearly stated their take on this issue. Apparently they are not representing the residents of Temple but rather the business world. This is the second incidence, the first was when they set up the budget at town meeting last year with the assumption everyone was going to change the fiscal year, which they also had voted down previously. That made it necessary to have a second town meeting to complete the budget for 2015.
We will just have to “stay tuned” and vote accordingly.
Let’s just pass laws, banning logging, banning automobiles, banning airplanes, banning electricity and all those other modern conveniences that I’m sure no one from Temple or anyone else against wind power is using. That way we can get rid of all the eye sores like utility poles, roads and such and have everything nice and pretty and green.
I’ve said it once already and I’ll keep saying it …. NIMBY’s. Let someone once have all that nasty stuff in their back yards while we still enjoy the benefits of a somewhat modern society.
To “Franklinite”: Banning? Temple merely decided to enact an ordinance regulating wind power systems, just as there are State regulations on logging and federal regulations on cars, airplanes, and electricity. Industrial Wind Farm Development requires regulation, and this occurs at the federal, State and local levels. Is your backyard a good spot for an interstate highway, an airport, or a power plant? Probably not, and this is the reason there are laws, codes, standards, and regulations for such developments that have significant impact. It’s all a matter of scale – the Industrial Wind Farm Development that RES wants to build is a world apart from the Wincharger wind generator my granddad used to charge the tractor batteries on his dairy farm!
The spirit of the Temple resisters is heart warming. The industry’s greed will not let up, and they don’t give a care about Temple, but it looks like enough residents have enough love for their place and strength among neighbors to stand up to it. “What does it take for you to go away?” is an awesome quote.
“J” – instead of enabling the travesty of grid-scale big-wind development in Temple, why not put our efforts towards enabling the Town to develop a Comprehensive Plan instead? Without one Temple will remain vulnerable to such large industrial projects that have the potential to destroy the essence of our community.
Mountain Hugger… Well said! Analogies anybody can understand!
‘Good Planning’, you are absolutely right.
Temple folks, as I understand it, are not against wind. (wasn’t there a song about that? Running against the wind, or some such?) Small wind projects are welcomed under the current ordinance. The concern at hand is the installation of a project that would negatively impact the community as a whole.
Thanks “J” – Let’s encourage our Selectmen to alternatively post a Warrant Article placing a moratorium on any industrial projects until a Comprehensive Plan is adopted. This would be much preferable to the petition-based Warrant Article that they’ve suggested to overhaul the current Wind Ordinance, as that approach would have no context or guide for doing so without having such a plan.
THANK YOU TEMPLE RESIDENTS!!!!
Oh, and also meant to respond to Patty that RES stated at the meeting that they had approached the landowners, not the other way around.
The Selectmen, as I understand it, felt that they residents/voters should be informed about the enquiry from RES; that to simply tell them ‘no’ would be withholding important info from the residents.
Thanks Bobbie for your excellent article!