NMCC students (from left) Neil Berry and Eric Harvey take in the view at the top of the wind tower on the UMaine Presque Isle campus. As part of their safety training, all wind-power students must complete a climb test on the 225 foot tower, including standing on top of it.

The program instructs students in how to operate, maintain, and repair wind-turbine generators.

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Margaret Baker, talks with Gov. John Baldacci during a visit, where he viewed weatherization efforts.

“It’s beginning to feel warmer already,” said Baker, a widower on a fixed income, who struggled to meet her property taxes and pay for oil heat at the same time. “I really appreciate the help. I do get assistance from the Circuit Breaker program for the taxes, but with the price of oil I’ve had a hard time.”

Last year Baker sold some of her husband’s paintings to pay her bills. This year it will be different.

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The great state of Maine is almost ninety percent forestlands. Viewed by satellite at night, more than the top half of the state is dark. Lights disappear, and the forest continues on like a sea. The health of these forestlands prescribes the health of a major portion of Maine’s economy. Their future is the focus of a new report that will serve as a foundation for lawmakers and potential future funding for their sustainability.

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“It’s about community ownership, community control, and community benefit,” Fox Islands Wind Director George Baker continually says about the largest community wind development in New England.

His statement sums it up. The community now has the power in their own hands.

The islands of Vinalhaven, with 1,300 residents, and North Haven, with 700 residents, are connected to the mainland by a power cable that runs under Penobscot Bay.

Together they formed the nonprofit Fox Islands Electric Cooperative.

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Johnson Outdoors Vice President Kelly Grindle (from left), Old Town City Council President Dave Mahan, Gov. John Baldacci, and Johnson Outdoors Chairman and CEO Helen Johnson-Leopold cut a ribbon to celebrate Johnson Outdoors’ consolidation of its watercraft production facility in Old Town.

Last winter Johnson Outdoors announced it would close its manufacturing facility in Ferndale, Washington, and consolidate its plastic boat manufacturing to Old Town. In November more than 150 workers and state and company officials helped them celebrate the completed move into their new facility on Gliman Falls Avenue.

Now all Old Town canoes and kayaks will be manufactured in Old Town.

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Last fall under a 410-foot wind turbine, over 250 people gathered at Kibby Mountain to celebrate the start-up of TransCanada’s $320-million Kibby Wind Power Project.
Plans for an expansion to Kibby’s 44-windmill project, by adding 15 more turbines on nearby Sisk Mountain, were also unveiled.

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“The Pentagon has declared our dependency on foreign fuels a security threat,” said President Barack Obama during a press conference last November. “Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are traveling the county as part of Operation Free, campaigning to end our dependence on oil.”

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Last fall, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, which ships natural gas through Maine to Massachusetts, tripled its capacity under its Phase IV project with a new 146-mile pipeline. The natural gas is compressed in Brewer. This $300 million Phase IV expansion project went on line in January, 2009, and has made it possible to deliver natural gas daily to markets in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Atlantic Canada.

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America has adverted a depression.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is working. So far in Maine 3,500 people have been employed by it. In Maine’s bipartisan way, our U.S. representatives and senators voted for it.

Even during the recession, Maine has been growing its economy in certain sectors, aided by the grants from the Recovery Act. It’s important to remember and reflect on the reasons why that process is possible and how it all began, seven years ago.

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