Bingham wind farm appeal March 5

Sale to SunEdison increases
financial capacity

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    AUGUSTA — The Maine Board of Environmental Protection will consider the appeal and request for a public hearing by Friends of Maine’s Mountains of the commissioners’ approval of the Bingham Wind Project on Thursday, March 5 at the Augusta Civic Center at 9 a.m.

    At the meeting, the board will hear oral argument from the Friends of Maine’s Mountains and the licensee — First Wind — and a presentation by department staff.  “The board meeting will not be a public hearing,” according to Cynthia Bertocci, a DEP executive analyst. “However, the meeting is open to the public and anyone is welcome to attend and observe.”
    Friends of Maine’s Mountains, an environmental advocacy group, filed one of two appeals in October with the state Board of Environmental Protection. The other was filed by Alice McCabe Barnett of Carthage who later withdrew her objection.
    First Wind, which has promoted wind projects in five other states, was granted a land use permit in September 2014 to construct 62 wind turbines in rural Somerset and southern Piscataquis counties: 29 in Mayfield Township, 22 in Kingsbury Plantation and 11 in Bingham. The estimated cost of the venture is $398 million, according to published reports.
    Originally, Rand Stowell, president of Friends of Maine Mountains, said the organization “objected to the Bingham Wind Project based on inadequacies in the applicant’s decommissioning plan … and the applicants’ unlikely ability to show financial capacity.”
    But the financial objection won’t stand up any longer, according to Christopher O’Neil, whose Portland government relations firm represents FMM. “Once they found a new dance partner in SunEdison a few weeks ago, we watched the financial capacity issue more or less evaporate,” O’Neill said.
    SunEdison purchased First Wind last month for $2.4 billion, placing the firm’s wind-to-energy facilities under the umbrella of the world’s largest renewable energy company, officials said.
    In order to finalize the sale, First Wind had to buy back its ownership interest in Northeast Wind Partners II LLC from Nova Scotia-based Emera for $223 million.
    O’Neil also conceded that the prospects of winning the appeal are slim. “The law was written to roll out the red carpet for wind development,” O’Neil told the Observer. “So anyone who challenges the law allowing the permit has both hands tied behind their back from the start.”
    O’Neil said that FMM “brought up every issue we could at the initial hearing and at our appeal. But we’ve distilled it down to the issues we can score on: decommissioning capacity and the number of eagles’ nests within short distance of the proposed turbines. We don’t think they adequately accounted for the habitat they populate.”
    According to O’Neill, the DEP requested that First Wind set aside $1 million in decommissioning fees “in case, for example, the project goes haywire or becomes obsolete in the future. But we still feel that the DEP underestimates the decommissioning and dismantling cost and overestimates the value of the scrap metal.”
    Supporters point out that the wind farm, once built, would be a significant source of tax revenue in the affected communities as well as a job creator.
    Estimated yearly payments are $176,000 to Kingsbury Plantation, $106,000 to Bingham and $20,000 each to the towns of Abbot, Parkman and Moscow where turbines, transmission lines or substations will be located.
    According to a December 2014 study by Charles S. Colgan from the USM Maine Center for Business and Economic Research, wind power projects “created or supported an average of 1,560 jobs per year from 2006-18, with the largest employment anticipated in 2015 at over 4,200 jobs … (and) the vast majority of these jobs are in rural areas of western, eastern and northern Maine.”
    Colgan added that 23 firms related to wind power development had $89.6 million in sales over 2011-13 “resulting in an average of 390 employees in Maine and $61.3 million in earnings.”
    But FMM and O’Neil claim that the long-term effects far outweigh the revenue to be gained by the host communities. Therefore, the March 5 hearing could at least keep some of the issues in the forefront.
    “Will the hearing result in adding some conditions that might make it (the project) more palatable? I’d say probably,” O’Neil added.