Dear Editor:

I am trying to make a decision about the proposed coal gasification/power generating/diesel production facility in Wiscasset and am having trouble with the credibility of many statements against it. 

I read that the technology is not completely tested, but recently learned that every key stage of this process is based on decades-old, proven technology.  It was also stated that Maine is not suited for carbon sequestration, yet sequestration technology is still in its infancy.  We are told that tourism and real estate values will drastically suffer, but this never happened with Mason Station or Maine Yankee.  Why would it happen now? 

I recently saw data that shows Mason Station emitted more pollutants in two days than the gasification plant would emit in one and a half years.  Opponents have also stated that a "yes" vote to the height ordinance variance would be an irreversible commitment, but in fact, a "yes" vote would just be the first hurdle in a two year process of federal, state and town permitting, as well as political and probably judicial review. Let's at least discuss the proposal without distorting the facts.

Bob Haeberle

Wiscasset

Dear Editor

     The Twin River Energy proposal is an incredible opportunity for Wiscasset, the Midcoast region and the State and one I fully support. My family is just one of hundreds that benefited from working in the energy industry. I worked for Central Maine Power at Mason Station early in my career. Hundreds of other Maine families, if not more, have been supported by quality jobs at Maine Yankee, Central Maine Power, FPL Energy, Bangor Hydro and others across this state.

The Town of Wiscasset, our neighbors and all of Lincoln County also benefited from 30 years of Maine Yankee and much longer from Mason Station. It's true that Wiscasset residents and businesses received the most direct benefit from the tax revenues. However, our neighbors were and are much better off than if Maine Yankee hadn't been here. Just some of the examples are:

---Lower county taxes throughout Lincoln

---Free ambulance and fire service for surrounding towns

---A transfer station shared by three towns

·---

Dear Editor:

Here is a deal for Wiscasset homeowners: you get an offer that requires you to  lay down  a firm $40,000 up front.  In exchange, you get a promise for up to $3,500 each year, starting in about seven years, or so.  The only  conditions  are that the $3,500 is contingent on getting a bunch of approvals, inventing some new technology  and on lining up some deep pocketed investors to make the gamble work. You break even in only 18 years!  Does this sound good to you?     

This is just the deal offered by National RE/sources on the power plant and refinery. It is what their slick brochure (the one with the American flag, and the pretty little girl on the front) really says if you read between the lines.  The $40,000 is the 20 percent loss in your property value if you own the $200,000 "average" Wiscasset  house in the area around the plant.  If your home is actually close to the plant, you should figure on a 50 percent loss of property value - then you get your money back in only 35 years! 

Now for the bad news:  if the ordinance changes get approved, no new business and no new development is likely to come to Wiscasset with the coal plant "cloud" hanging over our town.  Yet, the economic reality is this: the "low-ball" estimate you've heard for the plant will actually double in price when real developers look at it, the state will clamp down on carbon dioxide emissions, raising the cost still further, and the investors (whoever they are) will back out.  This "slow death" will take years, and when death finally comes, you will get ...nothing.  Just another unfulfilled promise from National RE/sources.

Dennis Dunbar

Westport Island

Dear Editor:

This afternoon I walked from the Wiscasset Library down High Street to Tucker Castle, where I stood admiring the view. I saw the sparkling, blue waters of the Sheepscot River and the "prettiest little village in Maine" spread out below me. I thought, how fortunate we are to live in this beautiful place!

Should a coal power plant and diesel refinery be built in our community - on the hazardous scale planned by a Greenwich, Connecticut developer - Wiscasset, Edgecomb and the surrounding area would never look the same, or be the same for that matter.

A local citizens' group, The Back River Alliance, has outlined the dangers the plant would cause in a mailing which reached me on October 16

I quote from that letter:

"The proposed coal plant would release 22 pounds of mercury into the air every year. It would also pump five and a half million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year. Barges traveling on the Sheepscot and Back Rivers, 10 - 15 times a week, would devastate the local lobster industry."

Our magnificent Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, bordering on the Back River, would also be at risk for environmental pollution. Wiscasset citizens, do not let big money promises push you to act hastily. Please vote against an ordinance change on November 6.

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Moore

Edgecomb

Dear Editor:

Here we have a developer, National RE/sources, proposing state-of-the-art technologies to produce electricity and diesel oil cleanly and efficiently. So clean, in fact, that critics doubt their ability to deliver on the promise. I spent 18 years of my professional career in the DEP's Bureau of Air Quality where I sat opposite many project developers and almost always advocated for more control than was being proposed.

Twin River's proposed standards, which critics argue may not be achievable, will be incorporated into their air emission license and become state and federally enforceable emission limits. If they cannot meet them, the enforcement policies of both agencies will insure that the penalties for non-compliance exceed the potential economic value for continuing to operate.

I was astounded to read that critics were opposing the project on the basis of its greenhouse gas emissions. These critics are the very same people who have advocated enactment of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI is a cap and trade program with an ever-tightening limit on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) allowances.For every ton of CO 2 emitted from the facility, Twin River will be required to purchase allowances. Those revenues will go to the state of Maine dedicated to funding the dozens of energy efficiency programs identified in the Maine Climate Action Plan of 2004. Thus the project and RGGI will enable the goals of Maine's Climate Action Plan to proceed from plan to reality.

Sure, there is a long way through the environmental permitting process before our Department of Environmental Protection will be in a position to approve or deny the applications but let's be fair and objective about the public benefits and environmental impacts of the proposal.

David W. Dixon, P.E.

Whitefield

Fellow Wiscasset Citizens:

As an Electrical Engineer at Bath Iron Works, I am responsible for gas turbine engine control systems on board U.S. Navy destroyers. So let me point out that gas turbine engines do not burn coal! The key difference is that the Twin River Energy Facility engines will be burning a significantly cleaner coal and biomass product but doing so much more efficiently since they are of the gas turbine variety.Much less total pollution would be released into Wiscasset's atmosphere if they were to burn the clean diesel fuel that would be produced by the Twin River Energy Facility.

I would like to point out that gasification is not combustion and occurs at a higher temperature and pressure within a completely closed process which enables pollutants and contaminants to be removed before burning in gas turbine engines or conversion to diesel fuel.

I visited the coal gasification energy facility in Polk County, Fla., about 40 miles east of Tampa Bay, and talked with many residents. Local businesses like a horse farm, for instance, were thriving on the air quality and water quality and they were happy and confident at this leading edge technology to deliver cost effective and environmentally responsible energy supplies.

The Back River Alliance and other naysayers have distorted the truth about coal gasification technology and the environmental facts surrounding this proposal or have just not done the research necessary to be in a position of advising the community of Wiscasset on a decision critical to its survival and prosperity. My family is looking forward to the future of Maine with this sort of technology in place.

Darren L. Pearce PE

Wiscasset Resident

Dear Editor:

It seems most subjects around here cause us to retreat to all too familiar established battle lines. Battle lines between one town and another, between "native Mainers" and "people from away," between rich and poor; we're all too familiar with them. Too bad we find it so hard to find issues we can agree on.

It may be that in our efforts to place blame on the "others," we are overlooking something we all have in common, our love of the land and the water and our way of life. That is the magnet that drew us here and that keeps us from wanting to leave. Without it, few of us would care to stay.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could unite around our love of the land and  the water and our way of life? Maybe we could solve some of our economic problems without putting something we so highly value at great risk…

Tom Jacoby

Westport Island

Dear Editor:

The Twin Rivers proposal presents Wiscasset with an economic and public health emergency. It's frightening to think we might jeopardize the town forever with a shortsighted vote for a project that will benefit the corporate interests of people who do not live here—but not our interests.

How many people would want to live and/or work near toxic heavy industry? How many new businesses would want to locate there?

Property values anywhere near the plant would take a nosedive; property owners in other parts of town would then be saddled with making up the loss. In fact, a dark cloud would settle over Wiscasset's reputation—much like the coal dust that a certain wind will bring to our historic village. Wiscasset would become the midcoast town that people avoid—the region's shame.

Before a vote like this, we need to think about what kind of town we want to be. We need jobs and economic growth. We also need the assets for which Wiscasset is famous: a beautiful village; a superb harbor; a clean river that supports lobstermen, wormers, and recreational boaters alike; open space for public enjoyment; clean air; a reputation for being Maine's "prettiest village." Economic development does not have to be at odds with these assets. In fact, we should use them to attract new businesses that will provide employment and tax revenue while protec t ing what makes Wiscasset a great place to live.

A vote against the ordinance change is a vote for Wiscasset—its economy, its beauty, its children and elders. Let's not let Twin Rivers steal Wiscasset's riches to line its pockets at our expense.

Anne Leslie

Wiscasset

Dear Editor;

The lobstermen have had it good! For more than 20 years for each barge or oil tanker that made its way up the Sheepscot River to Mason Station a telephone call was made to several lobstermen to alert them of the event. Stewardship of the river was the main focus for the benefit of the fishing group, the water quality, the environment and respect to all users of the river.

Twin River's proposals have changed each and every week. Now its coal by rail, then its only 8.5 million gallons of water, it's the Back River, no its something else, oh we can't do a study until the town votes on the height change. Twin River people have said anything anyone wants to hear. Now generating power too cheap to meter and sell to its residents? This is another story that will change as just getting the power on the grid will take more than a simple connection to the transmission lines. The transmission grid is not sufficient to allow adding capacity without considerable expansion. In addition, generations bid costs to profit in a competitive system.

Wiscasset voters should say NO to change the height code.

For a matter of background, I was the Plant Superintendent at Mason anytime the plant was active from 1997 until 1999 and proud of it, grateful of the many employees who worked with me, safely with environment first. Does anyone have a clue who will be looking after the plant environment or should we take all the promises made by Point East saying they did the job. Oh, the lobstermen who is to give the call?

Nathan Whittaker

Westport Island

Dear Editor:

Wiscasset has good reason to be proud of its sons and daughters. We thrill to their accomplishments and love them for themselves, no matter what they do. We even have a hero, and mourn his loss, deeply.

My husband and I have just discovered one of Wiscasset's most talented sons, Duncan Cumming. His solo piano concert at Bowdoin's new Studzinski Recital Hall on Friday, October 13, was a brilliant performance. When this tall, slender, diffident young man came out to play and put his long fingers on the keys, magic happened. He sent Debussy's colors around the room like prisms flashing. He mastered the complexities of von Weber, Chopin, and William Matthews, and dazzled us with each interpretation. Without theatrics, he disappeared into the music.

So, our thanks must go to the artist, to Cumming's parents who raised him in our little village, to his many teachers who helped polish his prodigious skills, and to Bowdoin College, that gave this extraordinary concert to the community without charge. It was unforgettable.

Dulcianne Vye

Wiscasset

Dear Editor:

As Wiscasset's Harbor Master, I see first hand how important the Sheepscot River is to our town, our region and the families that depend on it for their livelihoods. This incredible resource is available to the entire community and should benefit everyone.

Fishing and commercial river traffic coexists all over the world. In fact, fishermen have coexisted with commercial river traffic on the Sheepscot for over 200 years.

As Marguerite Rafter used to remind many of us from time to time, Wiscasset was the port of entry for more than 124 years serving as a hub for shipbuilding, trade, textile mills and yes, power plants. Barge traffic in particular has coexisted with the fishing community on the Sheepscot since the 1940s.

In colonial times, towns chose the river channels as boundaries to ensure equal access to the economic opportunities rivers offered, certainly not for the benefit of one interest to the exclusion of others.

Some opponents of the Twin River Energy Center have claimed that commercial river traffic will destroy the livelihood of local fishermen. This just isn't true. The navigation channel on the Sheepscot is designated by the federal government and limits where the river barges can travel; limitations are strictly enforced, mitigating disruption of traps and loss of gear. Additionally, major advances in navigation technology provide for safer operation and coexistence with recreation and other commercial interests.

It's certainly possible for Twin River and the fishing community to coexist. We have more than 200 years of history to prove it. The river is a resource for the entire community providing equal recreational and commercial opportunity for all. I'm voting YES on November 6 so that the Twin River Energy project can go forward with the permitting process and I encourage you to do the same.

David Sutter

Wiscasset Harbor Master

Dear Editor:

I am not talking beauty or children. I am talking about the possibility of people in this area being required to live while a developer "from away" brings demands for huge amounts of water per day.

Anyone who is not unable or unwilling to think can relate the actual demands for more water (as related in the Wall Street Journal, October 17, page A18, in the midwest) to the projected water demands in Wiscasset and surrounding area. The result of rational thought will be that the project is a huge gamble. Our needs for water surpass our need for electricity or for transportation.

     The promoter (a.k.a. traveling salesman?) has a big card with a picture of a pretty girl and a flag (yeah for patriotism) to ask for a YES vote.

Read carefully - it is full of lies or misleading statements. Too many to repeat here, but one will do. "Twin River will not burn coal." It is a "process to transform coal." It seems a lot like any oxidation process. Fuel (coal) and oxygen go in, heat is released along with byproducts (ash is one). Let's not mention ash. 

     I will jump ahead to a future year when the hard facts of economics makes this power plant become derelict and it sits there in Wiscasset. No one wants to buy it and the scars will be permanent.

Ward Davies     

Wiscasset

Dear Editor:

Lately, all we've heard is all this negative input from this group and that group. It's time to hear some cold hard facts.

#1 The government isn't going to let someone built a plant that will add more pollution to the area. With all the rules and regulations that the DEP and EPA have and will create, do you really think that they won't be regulated? They will be regulated just like Maine Yankee was - if not worse.

#2 The lobstermen don't own the river. The Sheepscot River has always been a working river. It's always had some sort of boat traffic. The fishermen will have to come to some sort of agreement with the other boat traffic. The fishermen can't place their traps in the channel and get away with what they have for the last few years. Even boats like the Pink Lady and other tourist type vessels have just as much problem navigating the river with all these traps in the way. And furthermore, most of them only fish for four maybe five months out of the year. So what do they do when they're not fishing? Maybe they're looking for a winter job. Could it be that maybe they might be working on the construction part of this "proposed plant?" Do you think that this "proposed plant" might hire them? I don't think you'd hear them saying, "Oh no, you're one of those fishermen, we can hire you." These fishermen have had so many restrictions put on them by the government, have any of these "Friends of the Sheepscot" ever stood up for them?

#3 We've taken in school children from Westport Island and we've also taken their garbage. I guess we're good enough for their garbage but they also want to run our town. Well then, let's share the wealth, when it comes to their million dollar homes that have populated the island. Let's get with the program, they can't have it all.

#4 Wiscasset has champagne taste. We have never come to admitting that there is no Maine Yankee. We don't know how to budget nevertheless cut the budget. When the voters vote no for something, the selectmen say something was wrong with the wording or we can't figure out what the voters meant. We need the plant. There are more "for sale" signs up than every before. It's pretty bad that people can't afford to live here anymore. This is what "Maine's prettiest village" has come to.

#5 The most important issue is that this plant will give us "all" opportunities. It will create jobs. It will give area businesses money to expand and bring in quality merchandise and hire more people. Yes, people will move here and the area will grow but isn't that what we want and need? Not everybody can be a welcome person for Wal-Mart.

We, the people of Wiscasset, don't go around meddling in every other town's business. Can we at least take care of our own business and that includes whether or not we decide if there's a plant? We are still a long way from actual construction of this "proposed plant." There's still a lot more hoops to be jumped thru.

The silent majority

M. Dawson Family

Wiscasset

Dear Editor:

Edgecomb is facing a critical stage with development on Davis Island since the addition of town water and sewer. Much clearing, blasting and building has happened in a short time. With huge new projects looming on the horizon, the traffic and potential for contamination of our natural resources increases dramatically.

The following is a letter I delivered on October 17 to the Edgecomb Planning Board at their first public hearing for the proposed Assisted Living Facility which would be developed on the top of Davis Island. If anyone has a comment they would like to forward, feel free to send an e-mail to: davis_island@hotmail.com

Ms. Katherine Braid

Edgecomb Planning Board

Edgecomb, ME 04556

This letter is regarding the development of Davis Island and specifically the proposed Assisted Living Facility.

I begin by quoting the Land Use Ordinances:

'Section 1 - Subdivision Standards and General Provisions

1.1 Purpose

The purpose of these subdivision regulations shall be to assure the comfort, health, safety, and general welfare of the people, to protect the environment, and to provide for the orderly development of a sound and stable community.'

Section 3 - Site Plan Review Standards and General Provisions

3.1 Purpose

3.1.7 To balance the right of land owners to use their land for the purposes stated in paragraph 3.1.1 above, with the corresponding right of abutting and neighboring land owners to live without undue disturbance from noise, smoke, fumes, dust, odor, glare, traffic, or storm water run-off, or the pollution of ground or surface water resources.

3.1.10 To protect property values; and

3.1.11 To reduce off-site problems created by development, thereby decreasing the cost of maintaining or improving municipal facilities.

Approval of the Assisted Living Facility project would be in direct contradiction to this statement of purpose in the Land Use Ordinances.

The facility is proposed to have approximately 54 units, reduced from 62 because the project would not fit on top of the island. This project was originally proposed on the North side of Route 1 but the sewer hookup was to be too expensive when the project was hooked up to the Town's sewer system.

The current project alleviates that cost by hooking up to The Sheepscot River Inn sewer system, thereby bypassing the town and the associated costs.

Another issue was the traffic impact of the facility on Route 1. The new site simply moves the traffic across the street and combines it with the traffic generated by Workforce Housing. This is not a traffic impact solution; it just moves the problem across the road. Having lived in an area with a high population of senior citizens, I have seen firsthand the accident rate and delayed response time of elderly drivers. It seems as though this site would put the residents in jeopardy by building in an area that does not have suitable roadway access and may result in accidents as the seniors try to enter the busiest road in the region. Also, are there any inherent dangers in having the traffic for the Senior Center enter and leave the facility through the Workforce Housing complex where there may be small children playing on or near the road?

The Route 1 site at Mostly Maine was a level parcel in an area of light commercial development, better suited for this proposed use. The top of Davis Island, on the other hand, is forest and ledge which would be blasted away and is also listed on the town's website as Highly Erodable Soil and has areas surrounding it which have slopes of 20 percent more which lead to freshwater wetland, Cod Cove and the Sheepscot River.

The lure of tax income should not outweigh the quality of life and property values of even one Edgecomb resident. It is not a good development decision to allow construction of such magnitude in an area that seems so ill fit for such a use. The proposed building has been modified at least two times to try to shoehorn the project onto the top of the Island. It does not fit the space, nor does it fit the type of use for what is currently a residential area. A structure larger than the local supermarket does not belong on this site.

Economic development, as praised by the Governor's office previously, should not be considered the ultimate goal if that goal destroys the quality of life of the town's residents. Davis Island had only 19 residences two years ago. Growth rates and density need to be addressed on this small island.

There are 20 new homes being built with 20 more coming, 26 units built at the Workforce Housing complex and now 54 residences in the Senior Center; that's 120 new residences on this small island in two years.

The Davis Island stretch of Route 1 cannot handle the traffic generated by residents and tourists TODAY. The addition of 1000 trips a day to the mix is unsustainable.

We need a moratorium on building and sewer connections until we can figure out how to grow responsibly. Growth 'just because it's there' is not a responsible plan. If developers continue to be in such a hurry to build as much as possible before the town wakes up to what is happening, the town will lose.

The issue of overdeveloping Davis Island is currently being overshadowed by the prospect of a Coal Gasification plant on the Back River. It is important to focus on the immediate need of the citizens of Edgecomb and also the long-term effect that rushing to develop every single acre of Davis Island will create. The approval of 120 additional residential units on a small island within two years is as destructive to the environment, the quality of life, pollution and traffic issues as one could possibly imagine. This is not the time to rush to judgment; this is the time for a moratorium on building on Davis Island until a comprehensive development plan can be determined and the related traffic and sewer issues resolved.

Skip White

Edgecomb

Dear Editor:

In response to an article on Bristol going to a secret ballot style of voting, the citizens in Bristol are using Wiscasset and Jefferson's style of voting as a solution to their problems of a low turn out at the polls. Bristol's voter turnout should immensely increase.

I am proud to be a Wiscasset voter. When the majority of townspeople finally took charge in changing the style of voting, they paved the road to true democracy. Every vote and every voice should count in an election in every town. You as a voter hold the true power in planning for your town's future.

Gretrude Perkins

Wiscasset

Dear Editor:

The members of the Westport Island Conservation Commission are seriously concerned about the largely unknown, but worrisome, environmental impacts of the proposed Twin Rivers coal gasification plant proposal. Too many important unanswered questions are outstanding, including:

• Are the plant's outputs needed here in Maine, or are we just to be the place that will permit such, so that others to our south can avoid the impacts we will endure?

• Will the project really lower electric costs in the region ?

• How will the enormous quantities of coal be delivered and stored, without significant impact on our environment?

• What impacts will the temporary construction workforce really have on our localities?

• Since this project will double the amount of CO2 released from Maine's power plants, how in any realistic way can the CO2 emissions be "captured" on this site?

• Will the mercury emissions of the plant pose a significant health risk to the region and impact our fishing industries?

• Will this project have any regional benefits, to offset its regional impacts?

• Why have similarly proposed facilities in other states suddenly been abandoned, after closer reviews?

• Is there really a financially capable entity behind the proposal that can assure being responsible for not only building the facility but for maintaining and improving it as required?

• Will our locally important fishing industry be destroyed by coal barge traffic and pollutants?

A "NO" vote on November 6 by the citizens of Wiscasset should not kill the potential for any realistic proposal, if the developer is at all serious and sincere in its plans. Such a vote should, however, indicate the need to more fully develop these plans.

Respectfully yours,

William Hopkins

Dennis Dunbar

Carol Way

Marianne Williams

Mary Ellen Barnes

John Nelson

Sandy Hopkins

The proposed Wiscasset coal gasification plant will release an estimated 22 pounds of poisonous mercury a year into the air, causing contamination of a large geographic area around the plant. In a recent article, Senator Susan M. Collins said, "It is well known that mercury is one of the most persistent, widespread, and dangerous of environmental pollutants."

Mercury is a poison. It is a ludicrous idea to even consider allowing this plant to be built.

Why is one small town making a decision for an entire region that would be affected by mercury contamination?

Airborne mercury vapor is absorbed by breathing and skin contact, and it is transferred into the bloodstream where it circulates throughout the entire body affecting all organ systems. Dr. Michael Ziff, DDS, a dental expert on mercury has noted that "...mercury is so toxic to the human organism that there can be cell death or irreversible chemical damage long before clinically observable symptoms appear indicating that something is wrong." Fetuses, children and everyone deserve to be protected from exposure to mercury from all sources.

I have personally experienced mercury poisoning from the mercury in my mercury amalgam dental fillings. It is a hell I would not want anyone else to be forced to live through without their consent. Some of the symptoms I experienced were: hyperthyroidism, shaking, tremors, heart palpations, reading comprehension loss, short-term memory loss, severe fatigue, compromised immune function, depression, anxiety, inability to cope with stress, respiratory and sinus infections, joint and muscle pain, skin fungus, reactive to chemicals, digestive and reproductive problems, and many more. There is no taking mercury back once it is in the environment. Stop the toxic contamination before it starts. Sandra Redemske

Jefferson