Waiting for winds of change | Angus King reflects on his stalled wind project and Maine's energy contrariness

Before he became governor in 1995, Angus King worked to license hydropower generation and his energy company won contracts with Central Maine Power, the latter work producing the campaign funds that helped him win two terms as Maine’s second Independent governor. Since leaving office in 2003, he’s returned to renewable energy with one of the biggest wind power projects yet proposed for Maine’s mountains, 39 turbines producing 117 megawatts in Somerset County’s Highland Plantation. He recently sat down with Mainebiz at his home in Brunswick to discuss the controversial Highland project, recently dealt a blow by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which said the project’s impacts on wildlife are unacceptable. King and his partner, Rob Gardiner, put the project on hold May 2. An edited transcript of the interview follows.

Mainebiz: When you first ran for governor, you talked a fair amount about your frustrations in attempting to get hydro licensed in Maine. Does your recent experience with the Highland wind project bring any of that back?

Angus King: Absolutely. I remember vividly going to hearings in Maine on small hydro projects and having people shout at me, “Why are you ruining our rivers? Why don’t you build windmills?” More recently, I’ve been to hearings on wind projects and had people shout at me, “Why are you ruining our mountains? Why don’t you do more hydro?” Yes, it has brought back that thought. My philosophy has always been that environmental regulation is absolutely essential. Without it, as we know from Maine history, the rivers were polluted and the air was horrible. The question is, what is the process? As a businessperson, I have no problem with strong rules and regulations, but I want them to be enforced predictably. In Highland Plantation, we thought we knew the rules, were abiding by the rules, and got something dropped on us at the 11th hour that was not even suggested during a three-year consultation process.

Why did you think Highland was a good site?

We thought this was an ideal site. It’s got great wind. Some opponents have said, “I’m for wind, just not on mountaintops.” Well, that happens to be where the wind is in Maine. That’s like being for hydro, but not in rivers. So, it’s one of the best wind sites in Maine. Second, it’s subalpine. It’s below the level that the state has established as special habitat, below 2,700 feet. There’s already a major transmission corridor, although we’d have to build a new line.

Does it seem odd to you that people are very concerned about a 300-foot wind tower, but not plowing through 50 miles of woods to build a transmission line?

Sure, and that’s the tradeoff if you build near people. You get conflicts with residences and people, but there’s likely to be transmission. The further you go into the wilderness, the more likely you are to need a long transmission line, which has environmental effects and expense.

So you have a transmission line, but not many neighbors?

There are two summer camps about a half-mile from the nearest turbine. It’s a mile and a quarter to the nearest residence. We’ve learned that if you site projects too close to people’s houses, you have issues with sound and flicker, but it’s dealt with by setbacks. So you have good wind, a transmission corridor and virtually no close neighbors. No site is perfect, and the issue, we always believed, was visibility from the Appalachian Trail, which runs along the top of Bigelow, down over Little Bigelow and on toward Flagstaff Lake. Almost all our attention was focused on visibility.

What is the closest visible point of the AT to a wind tower?

The closest with a clear view is 4.67 miles. Most points are more than 8 miles.

Has the National Park Service, now the official custodian of the trail, weighed in?

They’re opposed. They don’t want people seeing turbines from the trail. Let me add, though, that this is a major project, producing as much energy as the Wyman Dam [in Somerset County]. It’s equivalent to all the dams on the Penobscot’s main stem combined. Some people say, “Why did you take down the Edwards Dam? You’re losing an energy resource.” But Edwards was something like 1 or 2 megawatts. And removing it had big environmental benefits. In this case, it’s a big energy source with, we feel, relatively modest environmental impacts. It would take 70,000 home windmills to produce the power, at four times the cost.

The current sticking point is wildlife habitat. You said this was a surprise to you. Where do you go now?

We’ve sent the department a point-by-point comment, places where we think they misinterpreted the data, or there wasn’t support for their position. And we’re going to sit down and try to work through issues. One is the bog lemming. There are two in Maine, the southern bog lemming, which is plentiful, and the northern bog lemming, which is endangered. There’s no evidence the northern bog lemming is in the vicinity, though there may be habitat. We identified habitat and moved turbines and roads. There are a large number of birds and bats passing through, but the department says there’s no evidence to predict how many will be injured. It’s a circular argument. The best data are what’s happened in Maine at other projects. We have 100 turbines up and the impact has been extremely low, something like one bird or bat per year per turbine. You’ve got to compare it with plate glass windows and cats, which kill thousands of times more.

What are the other issues?

Spring salamanders and roaring brook mayflies. Our independent environmental consultants say this project will actually recreate a better environment for these species. This is an industrial forest, with cutting and roads. Standards are much higher in connection with the wind project than for just plain old cutting wood. We want this to be a model project. We’ve already removed the eight best-performing turbines to mitigate the visual impact. We’ve had many meetings, phone calls and e-mails, and at no time did anyone say, “This is an inappropriate site for a wind project. We think the problems here are really serious.” Then all of a sudden, the atomic bomb drops.

Some people think mountains are just too valuable for this project. What do you tell them?

We’re in real trouble when it comes to energy. The price of oil is downright dangerous for Maine. Eighty percent of all energy use in Maine comes from oil. The only way to change it is to substitute some other energy source, and the most logical one is electricity. You can make electricity from natural gas, or coal, or nuclear, or wind or solar. All have impacts. And not choosing has an impact. Doing nothing means spills in the Gulf of Mexico, wars in the Middle East, particulates and CO2 in the atmosphere. The reason I got into this business is that I believe wind has the least impact. If we can’t change the views of some of our mountains to get off oil, we’re sunk. I knew some people would worry about the view, but I never expected this level of anger and bitterness. Yet I spent last weekend on Vinalhaven and couldn’t find a single person that didn’t love those turbines.

Apparently, there are a few.

There are a few. But I talked to a former lobsterman who said, “You know, every morning I look out my kitchen window when I’m washing the dishes, and I see those turbines turning, and I love it.” The idea that there’s universal revulsion is not true. People who’ve been to Europe, or Prince Edward Island, or upstate New York or Canada often say, “I saw those windmills. They’re beautiful.”

Is this perhaps a transitional phase? Cell towers were intensely controversial 15 years ago, and now they don’t seem to bother people much.

I think the same thing will happen with wind.

In time for the Highland Project?

Well, I don’t know about that. But I think people will say, “What was all the fuss about?” The Appalachian Mountain Club is opposed to the project, but we went out and surveyed hikers, had people up on the mountains and showed them pictures. The majority reaction was, “This is no big deal.”

Tell me about offshore wind. It’s attractive to some people because they can’t see it. As a business investor, how do you see offshore wind?

Once we start to develop offshore, a whole new set of opponents will emerge. Highland Plantation may not care, but residents of Boothbay, or fishermen out of Eastport or somebody will. Look at Cape Wind down at Nantucket. But offshore wind holds enormous potential. If we developed the wind potential just in the Gulf of Maine, it would equal 60 nuclear power plants, even accounting for the intermittency of wind — enough for the whole Northeast. Cars, everything. There are three interrelated problems, however. One is technology. The Gulf of Maine is deep, and they have to float. That’s what Habib Dagher and his team at UMaine Orono are working on. The second problem is economic, making it cost competitive. The third is regulatory. There are at least four federal agencies with jurisdiction, and they don’t talk to each other much. Offshore wind is probably 10 or 12 years away, and we may not have 10 or 12 years. The cost of oil has tripled in 10 years. What if it doubles in the next five? We’re talking $8 a gallon gasoline. That would make Maine almost uninhabitable. I see natural gas and onshore wind as transitional energy sources.

There’s some question where the LePage administration will come down. There was a controversy about offshore wind, and comments from the governor at a recent appearance in Camden indicated he didn’t think mountaintops were a great idea, either. Have you had any specific information from the administration about your project?

No. The Renewable Energy Association met with all the candidates during the campaign, and I think the governor wants to be sure it’s cost effective. That’s reasonable. And of course the administration favors business investment. But I don’t think they’ve formed a comprehensive policy on wind power. My vision is substituting electricity for oil in heating and transportation. And we can do it. Technology for heating with electricity is there. Running cars on electricity is right on our doorstep. Why do it? Because it offers us the most realistic hope of getting off oil, and addressing global climate change. We’ve got to quit burning stuff. And wind and solar are the principal ways to do that. And hydro.

You haven’t mentioned nuclear power. Even in the environmental community, there’s renewed interest. Your administration saw the shutdown of Maine Yankee, the only nuclear power plant ever built here. Can nuclear power come back to Maine? Should it?

I think the problem is cost. Maine Yankee was licensed in 1972. The last nuclear power plant attempted in New England was Seabrook, and Seabrook 2 was essentially abandoned because of cost.

And Seabrook 1 bankrupted the parent utility.

Right. Nuclear power is just very expensive. And there are risks. Do we really want a project that potentially could harm the coast of Maine?

One more question. Do you think the Highland Project will be built?

Yes. I just think the site has too much going for it. If it isn’t built, it would be a shame. It’s a quarter of a billion-dollar capital investment. There’s nothing going on in Maine remotely close to the wind industry. There are 70 manufacturing jobs here in Brunswick involved in the wind industry, and a lot more potential. And there are construction jobs, moving from project to project. I meet people from Reed & Reed whose jobs have been saved by wind power. I ran across a wonderful quote from Joshua Chamberlain to the Legislature in 1867, advocating hydropower. Why hydropower? Because it’s what we have. We don’t have oil. We don’t have gas. We don’t have coal. We’re in a cold northern climate, but we have the best wind resource in New England. When oil is $200 or $300 a barrel, I don’t want to have my kids say, “What did you do to protect Maine?” If oil goes to $300, people aren’t going to be able to live here. Talk about a national park. We’ll be one big national park.

Douglas Rooks, a writer based in West Gardiner, can be reached at editorial@mainebiz.biz.

Editor's note: Mainebiz received a number of letters to the editor in response to this Q&A. Read those reactions here.