I urge Maine’s legislators to reconsider the wind farm proposals for Western Maine. Green energy in the form of small-scale local wind projects is one thing, but these are huge and intended for faraway markets – expensive for taxpayers to support, and damaging to the environment and important local scenic values.

Similarly questionable is the proposal to use stimulus money to bury the electricity connection between Canada and Boston. That money could be used to bury the feeder lines around Maine. It would pay for just as many short-term construction jobs, but would have lasting long-term economic benefits – no more doing without electricity after every windstorm.

What Maine should really be investing in is not huge interstate projects that mainly benefit others, but a solid system of small-scale wind, tidal and solar facilities in every town and city in Maine.

Why not start investing in that now? With the stimulus money coming in, why not position Maine at the forefront of intelligent, creative energy solutions?

Let the other states slog along with outdated technology. Maine can do better.

Sally McGuire, Carthage