Print Article

“The only thing standing between predatory wind multinationals and the integrity of the environment of Maine are the patriots willing to be arrested to defend our most precious assets, rights and the public trust”

·
Barbara Durkin, Portland Press Herald (11/15/10)

In response to the editorial “Anti-wind protests undercut their own case” (Nov. 10): There will come a time when perception becomes reality.

What once held promise as a cure for harmful emissions as an energy source that could reduce our dependency on foreign countries and fossil fuels will be recognized as a bad trade.

Wind energy is a low-value, high-cost, unreliable non-solution to our energy needs. Its massive environmental footprint is the antithesis of “tread lightly and leave a small footprint” Earth-friendliness.

The three dozen protesters who stood out in the biting rain and who were arrested will in time be vindicated in the eyes of the editors and others in the aftermath and awakening of the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the public and the environment.

This is, was and will always be about the money. Multinationals like G.E., Iberdrola, ShellWind, BP Wind, UPC Wind, First Wind, Second Wind, Italian Vento Power Corporation IVPC and others are not concerned about environmental or public benefits.

They are content to destroy our natural resources by policies that force us to pay for their environmental destruction and blight.

As stimulus funding has failed to produce industry-claimed green jobs, it will vanish. Wind developers will be seen as carpetbaggers, leaving behind a graveyard wake of 440-foot steel towers with fiberglass, concrete and transmission fluids.

Wind turbine oils and toxic neodymium will contaminate our aquifers. Our soil will be littered by 400-foot steel and fiberglass failing wind turbines, each with 8,000 parts, in place of scenic splendor that once defined the region.

The only thing standing between predatory wind multinationals and the integrity of the environment of Maine are the patriots willing to be arrested to defend our most precious assets, rights and the public trust.

They may be ridiculed by some now, but they have my enduring gratitude for their selflessness, wisdom, vision, patriotism and actions taken to defend public and environmental interests.

First, do no harm. Conservation measures should be exhausted before we permit the shift of our wealth in resource and monetary terms to multinationals in exchange for unreliable, cost-prohibitive, redundant, habitat-and-scenic-vista-damaging, bird-and-bat-killing, home-and-property-devaluating, quiet-enjoyment-destroying and community-dividing wind energy.