A Moment of Silence For Rollins Mountain and Rocky Dundee

Before First Wind.....


And after....

I’ve been single-minded over the last year and a half as I’ve made an effort to help educate Mainers about the realities of industrial wind, and as I’ve worked to halt the destruction of Maine’s ‘quality of place’. There’s no quick fix. This is a long and drawn-out battle and the opponent is a wealthy and powerful corporate lobby which enjoys the backing of some high government officials, departments and independent organizations.

As long and as hard as I’ve toiled though—there are many others in Maine who have been at it longer. Men and women whose battle scars are deeper and whose knowledge and experience far surpass mine. Citizens who are in a place--and who have a perspective--which I dread having to share.

First Wind is building their industrial wind facility on Rollins Mountain and Rocky Dundee in Lincoln. This financially troubled company did not have to prove they had the capacity to fund their project before the Department of Environmental Protection granted them a permit. The Friends of Lincoln Lakes have filed an appeal based on First Wind’s lack of financial capacity, but the blasting of mountain ridges and the building of new mountain-side roads continues, unchecked.

Here are two links which I hope you will check out. The first will take you to YouTube, where you will see a short DVD which I put together with my friend Tom Olds. This music video consists of photos of Maine, the way it is. Maine… the way it SHOULD be.

The second link will take you to photos snapped by my friend Brad Blake on February 20th in Lincoln, the land of thirteen lakes. These photos show First Wind’s Rollins project, currently under construction.

First—the “before” shots, and then--the “after”.

Our hearts are breaking as we watch the destruction of our high terrain areas for an energy source which is not reliable, is not constant, is not able to be stored, and is not needed in the state of Maine. This should not be happening. But the wind lobby did their ground work under cover of darkness—misleading Mainers about the benefits of Big Wind, and neglecting to mention the many negative impacts.

Now, in the light of day, we watch. Like an accident happening in slow motion, we can’t take our eyes off the scene of the tragedy. We don’t want to look—but we can’t help it.

But we can help keep this from happening again. To learn the FACTS about the plan to develop hundreds of miles of Maine’s mountaintops and to find out what you can do to help, please call me at (207) 628-2070, or email me at roomtomove@tds.net.

Let’s make this the last grid-scale wind turbine facility to be built in our state. Together, we can bring common sense, ethics and fiscal responsibility back to Augusta. By standing together, we can move mountains… or better yet—we can preserve and protect them.


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First Photo: Rocky Dundee before the turbines
Second: Rocky Dundee under construction, Fe. 20, 2011
Third: A Rocky Dundee ridge with waterfront cottages on Upper Cold Stream Pond below them
Fourth: Welcome to Lincoln--with turbine towers in the background