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The farm that everyone in Aroostook County is talking about isn’t for potatoes, and it’s also not your typical northern New England farm.
It’s the Mars Hill Wind Farm, where 28 gigantic towers along four miles of ridge have changed both the face of Mars Hill Mountain and the economic landscape of the town of Mars Hill, population 1,480.
Located along the Canadian border 27 miles north of Houlton, set in the heart of farming country, Mars Hill for decades has been largely a pass-through town along U.S. Route 1 on the way to Presque Isle. Its tourist draw was Mars Hill Mountain on the town’s outskirts, known since the 1960s as the home of Big Rock Ski Area. Seven years ago, Big Rock aligned with the Maine Winter Sports Center as Aroostook County economic leaders worked to establish northern Maine as a base for winter sports with a world-class reputation.
But today, the economic development efforts surrounding Mars Hill Mountain have everything to do with wind, not snow, with the establishment of Maine’s first wind farm—and the biggest wind energy project, to date, within New England. The region’s previous largest wind farm was a six-megawatt plant with 11 windmills in the northwestern Vermont town of Searsburg.
The 28 windmills, each 20,000 pounds and well over 20 stories tall, were constructed in December. The developer of the $50 million project, Evergreen Wind Power LLC of Bangor, is counting on having them fully operational by early March. Evergreen, itself, is a subsidiary of UPC Wind Partners of Massachusetts, a six-year-old wind energy company with several dozen projects in various stages of development within the U.S. and Canada.
But tiny Mars Hill is the talk of Maine and beyond just now. Ray Mersereau, the town’s mayor the last 15 years, can’t estimate the number of phone calls that have come from as far as California from those who just want to know more about the industrial-scale project. Some want to talk energy and environmentalism. Others want to know numbers—and what bringing wind power to their locale might mean for their communities, too.
Mersereau explains the project’s impacts from both national and local perspectives.
“We are generating 42 megawatts of power with no pollution,” he says. “We are using no foreign oil, and we are not burning any fossil fuels. We are saving finite resources, and we are using renewable resources.”
Locally, the financial benefits to the town’s tax base could not be more welcome. The town will receive significant revenues in tax payments from the project, a predetermined $500,000 a year for 20 years. For next year alone, the town’s tax rate will drop from 24 mils per $1,000 of property, to 20 mils. It would have risen to 25 mils, Mersereau notes, without the wind farm’s infusion of tax dollars.
Additionally, Evergreen signed lease agreements with more than a dozen Mars Hill property owners, covering the next 20 years. The total lease payments for those properties are expected to exceed $100,000 per year.
It’s not surprising then, that other advocates of wind power are pressing for projects to come to their part of the state. Additional wind farms have been proposed for Redington Township near the Sugarloaf ski area; Kibby Mountain near Coburn Gore and the state’s border with Quebec; northern Aroostook County; and Washington County.
The state of Maine ranks 19th for wind power potential, according to the industry trade group American Wind Energy Association. North Dakota, Texas, and Kansas lead the list of top-20 states for wind power.
Evergreen, the developer, sought out Mars Hill Mountain back in 2002 because it was already the site of access roads, transmission lines, and seven cell phone towers, in addition to the ski area. Furthermore, in the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s permitting process, the project was determined to present no significant impacts to wildlife or natural resources. The windmills feature the newest style of turbines, which typically do not result in bird mortality issues. Nonetheless, per the request of the Maine Audubon Society, Evergreen has committed to conducting two years of post-construction studies of avian and other wildlife issues.
The real impact, of course, is visual. The windmills loom high from nearly every point in town. They can be seen on a clear day from as far north as Caribou, 50 miles out as the crow flies. Each is enormous—times 28. Assembled in four parts, they involve three stacked support sections standing 262 feet tall at the hub, topped with three 115-foot-long spinning blades.
Mersereau calls their design “tall and graceful,” then adds, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The windmills’ closest neighbors, the landowners below, may have a predictable problem with their presence, but these days any industrial-scale project has its detractors. “You have to give up something, to get something,” Mersereau says.
The big economic winner, the mayor maintains, is the town, where the school will be better funded and where tourists will come. As for the local ski area, once the only reason that people came to Mars Hill Mountain, the management there is considering running the chair lifts in summer for those who want to see the enormity of the wind farm up close. That, by itself, will produce the ski area’s own second wind.
It’s the Mars Hill Wind Farm, where 28 gigantic towers along four miles of ridge have changed both the face of Mars Hill Mountain and the economic landscape of the town of Mars Hill, population 1,480.
Located along the Canadian border 27 miles north of Houlton, set in the heart of farming country, Mars Hill for decades has been largely a pass-through town along U.S. Route 1 on the way to Presque Isle. Its tourist draw was Mars Hill Mountain on the town’s outskirts, known since the 1960s as the home of Big Rock Ski Area. Seven years ago, Big Rock aligned with the Maine Winter Sports Center as Aroostook County economic leaders worked to establish northern Maine as a base for winter sports with a world-class reputation.
But today, the economic development efforts surrounding Mars Hill Mountain have everything to do with wind, not snow, with the establishment of Maine’s first wind farm—and the biggest wind energy project, to date, within New England
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The 28 windmills, each 20,000 pounds and well over 20 stories tall, were constructed in December. The developer of the $50 million project, Evergreen Wind Power LLC of Bangor, is counting on having them fully operational by early March. Evergreen, itself, is a subsidiary of UPC Wind Partners of Massachusetts, a six-year-old wind energy company with several dozen projects in various stages of development within the U.S. and Canada.
But tiny Mars Hill is the talk of Maine and beyond just now. Ray Mersereau, the town’s mayor the last 15 years, can’t estimate the number of phone calls that have come from as far as California from those who just want to know more about the industrial-scale project. Some want to talk energy and environmentalism. Others want to know numbers—and what bringing wind power to their locale might mean for their communities, too.
Mersereau explains the project’s impacts from both national and local perspectives.
“We are generating 42 megawatts of power with no pollution,” he says. “We are using no foreign oil, and we are not burning any fossil fuels. We are saving finite resources, and we are using renewable resources.”
Locally, the financial benefits to the town’s tax base could not be more welcome. The town will receive significant revenues in tax payments from the project, a predetermined $500,000 a year for 20 years. For next year alone, the town’s tax rate will drop from 24 mils per $1,000 of property, to 20 mils. It would have risen to 25 mils, Mersereau notes, without the wind farm’s infusion of tax dollars.
Additionally, Evergreen signed lease agreements with more than a dozen Mars Hill property owners, covering the next 20 years. The total lease payments for those properties are expected to exceed $100,000 per year.
It’s not surprising then, that other advocates of wind power are pressing for projects to come to their part of the state. Additional wind farms have been proposed for Redington Township near the Sugarloaf ski area; Kibby Mountain near Coburn Gore and the state’s border with Quebec; northern Aroostook County; and Washington County.
The state of Maine ranks 19th for wind power potential, according to the industry trade group American Wind Energy Association. North Dakota, Texas, and Kansas lead the list of top-20 states for wind power.
Evergreen, the developer, sought out Mars Hill Mountain back in 2002 because it was already the site of access roads, transmission lines, and seven cell phone towers, in addition to the ski area. Furthermore, in the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s permitting process, the project was determined to present no significant impacts to wildlife or natural resources. The windmills feature the newest style of turbines, which typically do not result in bird mortality issues. Nonetheless, per the request of the Maine Audubon Society, Evergreen has committed to conducting two years of post-construction studies of avian and other wildlife issues.
The real impact, of course, is visual. The windmills loom high from nearly every point in town. They can be seen on a clear day from as far north as Caribou, 50 miles out as the crow flies. Each is enormous—times 28. Assembled in four parts, they involve three stacked support sections standing 262 feet tall at the hub, topped with three 115-foot-long spinning blades.
Mersereau calls their design “tall and graceful,” then adds, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The windmills’ closest neighbors, the landowners below, may have a predictable problem with their presence, but these days any industrial-scale project has its detractors. “You have to give up something, to get something,” Mersereau says.
The big economic winner, the mayor maintains, is the town, where the school will be better funded and where tourists will come. As for the local ski area, once the only reason that people came to Mars Hill Mountain, the management there is considering running the chair lifts in summer for those who want to see the enormity of the wind farm up close. That, by itself, will produce the ski area’s own second wind.
