4/1/10

Happy April Fools' Day.

Rain watch: the Kennebunk River flooded over roads in York County.

Near the site of the (now removed) Fort Halifax dam, a major landslide occurred yesterday. The Morning Sentinel reports that Maine Emergency Management Agency director Richard Beausoleil said, "I’ve never seen a landslide like this. At least no one was injured and no one was fishing on the bank.”

Voters at the town meeting in Woodstock, Maine, turned down a proposed wind turbine siting ordinance that included a moratorium. This proposal was targeted at the Spruce Mountain Wind Project proposed by Patriot Renewables, which will include 11 turbines rated at 2 MW, with an estimated 55 million kilowatt hours of electric generation per year. 2416' Spruce Mountain (topo map) is prominently visible from Route 26; every time I've headed to Sunday River and the Bethel area, I've looked off to the right and seen the ledgy ridge stretching off to the northeast, and wondered about access. Patriot, developer of the 4.5 MW Beaver Ridge wind project in Freedom, is financed by Jay Cashman -- that's right, one person.