When this group first approached the Rumford Selectmen to request a 180 day moratorium, the selectmen correctly pointed out that windpower in Rumford is years away as no one has even applied for permits for roads to do the testing. The selectmen feel that there is plenty of time for careful, deliberate and thorough education so the people can make wise decisions on this matter.
Ron Theriault wisely pointed out that in his examination of the subject he found much on the internet written by those with the title Dr. or Ph.D. He being quite wise did not just take those titles as the gospel that the writer or speaker was doctor of, had a Ph D in or so forth in the field they seemed to suggest they were an expert in. I must say, Ron was a step ahead of me here. He had mad a point of checking the credentials of the Dr., PhD and soforeth to see if they were indeed credible. He suggested that thre Town bring in credible speakers to educate us.
The moratorium group has now scheduled a meeting and invited a number of speakers whose names have been made public. I decided to take Ron's advice befor I ventured to the High School and see what credibility through credentials I could fid for the listed speakers. Albert Aniel is a local physician of general practice with no specialty in the relavent areas of accoustics or anything else I could find. He submitted a proposal to the MMA against wind power which according to MMA documentation was rejected 9-1. Steve Thurston is a resident of Roxbury and other than being involved in three failed attemps to ban wind power in Roxbury he has no special knowledge. Steve Bennet is a former selectmen ib Freedom with large land holdings that according to the articles I read where not of interest to the windpower developer there. He was also previously considering developing a senior community on this very large parcel at one time but again, according to what I read had given up on that plan. after Plum Creek that is understandable. He is not trained in any field relavent to windpower. Tom Powell is the business from Dixfield who recently offered to assist Dixfield in gathering information and in the articles he claims no knowledge just a desire to learn and make an informed decision. Jay Dwight is a newspaper commentator. You may remember his commentary a while ago comparing the economies of Maine and New Hampshire, no wind power related expertise here either. Then we have Lisa Linowes who has a masters degree in marketing and was formerly with Xerox, autodesk, Houghton ?ifflin before beginning several of her own startups. Again no engineering. environmental or accoustics expertise or training.
If First Wind attends this meeting, they will be the only qualified speakers and at this point, they are not coming and neither am I. I hope at some point Rumford will have qualified people address the citizens and I will attend at that time. For now, if I want hystirics, conjecture, inuendeau, and scare tactics I will read the newspaper or a fiction novel
If we could only return to common sense...
Well put CS. I was thinking
Well put CS. I was thinking the same thing, why go listen to a bunch of people who we have already heard through the Roxbury deal. BLAH BLAH BLAH flicker BLAH BLAH BLAH noise BLAH BLAH blight BLAH BLAH