According to Paul LePage, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and other environmental groups “run the state.” And if he were governor, the DEP would be more business friendly, “instead of having people going around enforcing the regulations.”
A Lewiston native, does LePage not remember the stench and filth of the Androscoggin River 30 years ago?
If not for the DEP prohibiting the mills from using that river as their sewer, we would still have one of the most polluted rivers in the country.
And despite the BP oil spill, LePage supports expanding off-shore drilling, even saying there should be drilling off the Maine Coast.
Has he no conception of the recent devastation to the fishing and tourism industries, and not least of all, the ecological health of the Gulf Coast?
Clearly, LePage prefers a lack of oversight and regulation, the very things that have allowed these environmental disasters to happen.
Nathan Libby, Lewiston
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Yes but you forgot he does believe...
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Are you going to ignore these attacks against the Christian faith?
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Nathan, The Androscoggin is still not in the same class as other rivers cleaned up in Maine, thaks to the legislature and democrats who continue to vote for lower standards. It must be pretty tough for you to write a LTTE and hope that no one realizes that our local delegation voted AGAINST tougher standards for the river - and they are democrats...and then again there is the local sellout by democrats for wind power, destroying some very pristine mountain ranges in Maine.
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[This comment has been edited by the administrator] It looks to me like LePage might be the next Gov. People don't want a Baldacci retread professional politician like Libby Mitchell. We are PO'ed at Augusta and everyone who has been there for the last 8 disasterous years deserves to be thrown out---Libby Mitchell first! The Cape Eliz. Yuppie Cutler isn't catching on beyond the golf & yacht set. The other 2 independents are blips on the screen. So it comes down to Paul LePage.
I don't think LePage wants to or is going to be able to roll back environmental protections. I'm sure he appreciates the clean up of the Androscoggin, as he lived in Lewiston through it being the cesspool in his youth. One interesting thing about LePage is he is emphatic about the waste of taxpayers money in the folly of wind power. He is the only one of the candidates who appears to want to negotiate with Hydro Quebec and get a lower rate of electricity. Let's see if you follow economics. Mitchell loves wind power, which depends on subsidies and is 3X as expensive as the power prices now being set daily via ISO-New England. LePage favors a long term deal with Hydro Quebec at half the cost of ISO-NE. Which of these Governors will cost you, the consumer more? Mitchell! Which will likely assist economic development with lower electrical costs? LePage!
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The BP disaster was not that they drilled but they willfully and knowingly ignored safety rules and were not regulated enough. Corporations prove time and time again that they cannot be trusted. They simply can't. Greed will take over and the environment (and people) will suffer. The workers warned them but what management ever listened to the workers?
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Someone in Augusta needs to realize that even if Maine was peppered with windsprawl IT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE in C02 emissions. It may increase them. The rest of the country meanwhile is building coal fired plants,16 since 2008 and another 16 in the works. How simple does a politician have to be to ignor the fact that ruining Maine's mtns. will not improve air quality? Baldacci will be remembered as the worst governor ever bar none. Communities in Maine ...if a business comes to your town and they have lawyers stretching from Bangor to Portland , you better look out because they are up to no good.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.How about a cost /benefit analysis of the Wind Lie in Maine!
Paul LePage will do this! Moratorium and Cost/benefit anaylze Wind !
For those who like scientific facts , look at First Wind's SEC filing on their electricity production. There has never been an independent cost benefit analysis done on wind capacity potential by anyone in this state, the data was provided by this company (if we call a Federal subsidy hedge scam a company).First wind can’t even get its self-serving pseudo-data close .They blame ,most jokingly blame "' the Wind."
This is just too pathetic or laughable for even the worst cynic : it is borderline criminal, using our tax dollars poorly, and showing how scientifically challenged our state legislature has been on this issue to date.
From First Winds own SEC filing, see below
First, they aren't perfect:
Page 17:
We or our consultants may make mistakes in conducting these wind and other meteorological studies. Any of these factors could cause us to develop sites that have less wind potential than we expected, or to develop sites in ways that do not optimize their potential, which could cause the return on our investment in these projects to be lower than expected.
But they have picked locations with good winter winds:
Page 56:
For example, our projects in the Northeast tend to be sited in winter-peaking, storm-driven wind resources where a majority of the electricity production (and therefore REC production) occurs from October through March.
However, things haven't worked out as planned:
Page 68 - 70:
For 2009, energy production at Mars Hill was approximately 122,000 MWh ... due to below-average wind speeds in the region.
For 2009, energy production at Steel Winds was approximately 42,000 MW ... due to a combination of lower than expected turbine availability and below-average wind speeds in the region.
For 2009, energy production at Cohocton was approximately 204,000 MWh, ... due primarily to below-average wind speeds in the region and the planned ramp-up in turbine availability.
For 2009, energy production at Stetson I was approximately 139,000 MWh, ... due primarily to below-average wind speeds in the region
.For 2009, in which Milford I was operating for 46 days, energy production was approximately 40,000 MWh, ... due to a combination of below-average wind speeds in the region and the planned ramp-up in turbine availability.
So much for the theory of the wind always blowing somewhere!
Go Paul Lepage. Use a few facts please on this issue.
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What do we need a clean environment for? It's only dirt and trees and water, right? Let's just let the businesses regulate themselves. Maybe we could add a few more species of fish to the "don't eat" list, maybe a little more mercury in the food chain? Vote LePage to turn Maine into a business friendly cesspool.
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I have lived long enough in Western Maine to see the dead fish floating in the pollutted foamy and creamy colored Androscoggin River.
And yes, thanks to Edmund Muskie, a decent Maine legislature and conscientious regulatory agencies like the DEP and LURC, we can enjoy the mighty River again for recreational purpose.
That was then!
Now the DEP under the chaimanship of David Littell has turned its back away from what it is supposed to protect. In a move that spells horror to hundreds and soon thousands of Mainer, the DEP wants to blast mountain tops over a stretch of 360 miles, destroy birds and bats , annoy and sicken nearby residents with more than one thousand, 400 feet tall pin wheels waving their blades erratically high over these ridges.
Two years have passed since this insanity was forced down our throats and NO beneficial purpose has been connected to "windindustrialisation" of our precious mountains.
The DEP has used unprovable , unmonitored, unscientific, purely hypothetical assumptions of greenhouse gas emissions. The DEP is claiming precise amounts of saved CO2 , SO2 and NOX emissions when it has no studies that show where, how and when any fossil power plant can efficiently regulate its output to compensate for the constantly changing output of wind turbines.
The DEP has veered away from its role of protecting Maine's environment in order to pursue a mission to "save the planet" from climate change - and Maine's mountains, considered one of its most important assets by numerous studies, are now nothing more than industrial sites for useless wind turbines.
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LePage wants to run Maine into the ground and wants to see to it that his friends profit. Just remember Buffalo during Urban Renewal and along with supporters look at the damages. As well as nuclear waste and various other environmental damages. I think ewv should call me on this because I would like to make him a little bit red under the collar and have a little bit of fun with him.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Aside from the fact that this
Aside from the fact that this letter misrepresents Paul LePages' position, it also misrepresents what the viros are doing to us under the kind of raw power they exercise.
This is not a matter of preventing "pollution", viros constantly hide behind that when called on what they are doing, but it isn't true. They are nature worshipping power freaks who want to control the "environment", i.e., their surroundings, i.e., everything. They do this through rule by arbitrary bureaucratic dictates in the name of "science" -- just as the original "ecologists" wanted in the 19th century under the influence of German philosopher Hegel's "organic theory of the state" that in turn also led to Marxism.
As just one recent example look at the DEP's collaboration with Audubon a few years ago imposing new "regulations" slipped through in secret to seize control of private property in the name of "bird habitat", and DEP Commisioner David Littell's ridiculous op-eds claiming his invented bird stories designed for PR were "science". Al Gore's "invention" of the internet had nothing on this scam.
Viro pressure group activists who started the push for park and wilderness acquisition and greenlining of millions of acres of private property in Maine are now in top positions of power in state agencies under Baldacci. It is refreshing that a popular candidate for governor like LePage wants to push back against the abuse.
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