WP: Maine Community Beats Back Big Oil

Alright, that's it, I'm moving to Maine. Way to go, Maine! Wish I knew how to send these heroes a fan letter!

Maine Community Beats Back Big Oil
Companies Say They're Not Going Away
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 13, 2004; Page A03


HARPSWELL, Maine -- This small, coastal community a few miles east of Brunswick is an unlikely spot for a battle over industrialization. But the winding road into town makes it clear that residents have been in an uproar.

<snip>

On Tuesday, three-quarters of the town's voters turned out to reject, 55 percent to 45 percent, a proposal to allow two multinational energy companies to erect a $350 million liquefied natural gas processing plant on the shore of Middle Bay, an inlet off island-dotted Casco Bay. The project, which the companies call Fairwinds, would also have involved a docking facility for oceangoing tankers and a 40-mile underwater pipeline to link the plant with pipelines serving southern New England.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54335-2004Mar12.html

KevinJ,

Clearly the towns people have made it clear that they don't want the project in their backyard. (Here's a link to a local perspective... http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/1C98B341970CFAAD05256E530065981D?Opendocument)

Personally, I'm sorry it didn't get passed. Having been born in the area, lived there for 43 years and just two months ago moved away, I can tell you that that area of the country is having a very very hard time making ends meet.

If you want to get your liberal heckles up, consider this: Most of the locals in Harpswell, Maine have had to sell their homes and move inland. Skyrocketing real estate prices have made their property tax rate so high people who have lived there all their lives cant afford to live there anymore.

A project like this one would have helped with the local tax burden and brought much needed jobs to the area that is so reliant on the dwindling fish and lobster business.

But...as the post and the Brunswick Times Record reported, the people have spoken.

Regards,

S>

Not many, I'll grant you, but I do think preserving the planet counts as one. Plainly it cannot have been an easy choice for the townspeople, that's why I describe them as heroes, it's the hard choices that define us, not the easy ones. And I do think they made the right choice. Pillaging your enviornment may bring some short term relief to local economic hardship, but it's insustainable, it's therefore only prolonging the inevitable, and at the cost of destroying forever the priceless, unique environment you had. If you had a choice between leaving your beautiful home to seek work in Detroit, or destroying your beautiful home by turning it into Detroit, which would be the more attractive option? What would you really gain by taking the thing you love and turning it into something you hate? Would it be worth it just to have a job? I've got to believe there has to be a better way of achieving economic stability.

...which the Navy used to provide jet fuel to Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Harpswell Neck hasn't been a priceless, unique environment since before WW II.

I've got to believe there has to be a better way of achieving economic stability.

Come on up here and try to eat the scenery.

Way to go Dad!

Here's his website. Look at those pictures and try to imagine how it could have turned out...

http://www.widgeoncove.com

Congrats to Maine :hi: