Robert Gardiner’s rebuttal on wind power (July 20) completely misses the mark on why the western Maine mountains should be protected from commercial wind power development.

Just because many of the mountains in western Maine are below 2,700 feet in elevation does not mean they should not be protected from commercial development. The soils are just as fragile, the slopes just as steep and land just as beautiful as the higher mountains above 2,700 feet.

Blasting the top off any mountain, building a truck road to the top and clearing many acres for transmission lines is no more acceptable on the lower mountains than on the highest mountains. The visual and sound impacts of wind farms on those lower elevations would be even more intrusive than in the wilderness areas.

If the environmentalists are so desperate to save the planet, let them start by saving the mountains from commercial development.

Just because the Land Use Regulation Commission buckled under to the pressure of big business in granting a permit to the Kibby project, doesn’t mean there is a need to follow blindly by destroying the western Maine mountains.

Fred A. Huntress Jr., Poland Spring