A new law designed to speed up the development of wind energy projects was challenged for the first time today before Maine's highest court.
A group of Penobscot County residents called Friends of Lincoln Lake took its concerns to Maine's Supreme Court justices this afternoon. The residents are appealing the Maine Wind Energy Act, a measure designed to expedite the permitting process for setting up a wind farm.
"We are proud to be the first to challenge this law," said Lynne Williams, the lawyer representing Friends of Lincoln Lake, who oppose plans to establish the 40-turbine Rollins Wind Project in their corner of eastern Maine.
The Department of Environmental Protection, says Williams, relied on flawed studies when it approved the project. "I think there is argument to be made that the evidence that the state depended upon in this case was not reliable."
The decision, she says, was based on a computer model not specifically geared towards wind farms, which underestimates the noise level generated by turbine blades.
Juliet Browne, representing the project's developers, First Wind, defended the model. "The model is a tool and the benefit of this model is that it has been calibrated based on real data from an operating wind farm with the same turbines that are proposed here."
Meanwhile Margaret Bensinger, acting on behalf of the DEP, says the board also listened to an independent expert named Warren Brown before approving the project. "While at first Mr. Brown wrestled with the fact that the model used wasn't specifically designed for wind power projects, after thorough review he ultimately concluded that model adequately predicted the noise levels at the various locations. The board found this evidence to be convincing."
Arguments over computer models aside, the Friends of Lincoln Lake are also challenging the state's existing noise regulations, which Attorney Lynne Williams -- who is also a Green Party candidate for governor -- says do not help when it comes to tackling the particular problems associated with the sound of wind turbine blades.
It is not, she says, merely a question of decibel level. "And while we don't have noise regulations that apply to low frequency sound, which is the 'whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,' and amplitude modulation, which is the thumping that you feel when you sit too close to the speaker at a rock concert, we believe these come under the mandate of the department to take into account the health and safety of Mainers."
"The science on the effect of windpower on humans in the locality is changing rapidly, I would suggest. We're all learning in this process," said Chief Justice Leigh Sauffley, who expressed concern that wind farm operators take heed of any new findings about wind farm noise once the project is up and running.
Margaret Bensinger, representing the DEP, sought to allay Saufley's concerns. "One of the conditions of the permit is the post construction monitoring, and it's explicit in permit that the department can require modification, or even shutting down, of turbines that cause a problem."
"The Legislature's expedited process was designed under industrial and self-serving interests, and totally left out citizen impact," says Gary Steinberg of the Friends of Lincoln Lake, who were on hand for oral arguments in Portland. "And unfortunately, we've had to take actions, raise a lot of money, organize the best we could as citizens, and I'm tickled to death we're at the Supreme Court level and that we're being listened to by the Supreme Court justices."
And as those justices ponder the evidence presented to them, activists like Steinberg are hoping that a court ruling in their favor will lead to an overhaul of state noise regulations, and put the brakes on wind power development in Maine.
(Click to listen to the radio report)
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