- Target:
- Maine Land Use Regulation Commission
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- highlandmts.org
The Maine Land Use Regulation Commission is currently reviewing an application for a development permit submitted by Highland Wind, LLC. If granted, Highland Wind, LLC would build one of Maine’s largest industrial wind facilities in the heart of rural Maine and on the doorstep of the Bigelow Preserve and the Appalachian Trail.
According to the permit application:
• This enormous development would cover five mountains and hills and over 7 miles of ridgelines with 39 wind turbines, each well over 400 feet tall – twice the height of the tallest building in Maine. Up to 30 flashing lights would litter our once unspoiled night sky.
• Over 1.5 million cubic yards of rock and soil will be blasted and broken from the mountaintops to level their surfaces sufficiently to build the turbine foundations and over 18 miles of roads, 11 miles of which will be a 32 foot wide ridgeline road. To get an idea of the volume of mountain that will be displaced in this project, imagine a line of over 100,000 dump trucks filled with the excavated material stretching from Highland Plantation to North Carolina.
• Over 420 acres of mountain forest will be clear-cut, including forested wetlands. Additionally, some of the excavated mountain will be used to fill wetlands and streams.
• The normally silent mountains of Highland Plantation would experience sustained noise levels previously unknown.
Many Mainers are alarmed by the magnitude of landscape and soundscape degradation that will occur if this industrial development proceeds and the inevitable damage to Maine’s 'quality of place' that will follow. The development would devalue important scenic resources of state or national significance including the Bigelow Preserve, the Appalachian Trail, Flagstaff Lake, the Kennebec River, Gilman Pond, and the Arnold Trail. All lie in close proximity to the proposed development area.
The addition of your name to this petition will send a loud and clear message to the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission that this permit application should be denied.
We the undersigned, being citizens concerned about the grid-scale wind energy development proposed for the mountains of Highland Plantation, Maine, hereby register our objection to such development.
This objection is made in recognition of the negative effects it will have on the State of Maine, its scenic and natural resources, and its people. On a national level, we object to its adverse impact on Bigelow Mountain, a National Natural Landmark and the Appalachian Trail, a National Scenic Trail.
We, therefore, resolutely request that LURC deny Highland Wind, LLC’s permit application, DP4862.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Save The Highland Mountains petition to Maine Land Use Regulation Commission was written by A. R. M. and is in the category Environment at GoPetition.