Now multiply this by 10,000 towns
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Even Maine’s progressive areas are fighting over green energy projects
Eliot, Maine, a village bordering Kittery and firmly lodged in the deepest nether regions of the Green movement, a town where “Love Lives in This Home” yard signs outnumber “Trump 2024” signs by 1,000-to 1 (or would, if there were 1,001 residents), has just rejected a tiny, little solar power project.
Just last fall, Eliot voters joined the rest of the state’s greens in rejecting a proposed power line that would have fed renewable Canadian hydropower to New England. The corridor, 50-yards-wide, would have run through private timberland in a section of the state that is visited occasionally by local hunters, and exactly no Bostonias, ever. But … nature man!
A solar panel development in Eliot has been halted after residents mobilized against it.
The project in the York County town near the New Hampshire border had already been approved by the town’s planning board. But concerned residents who live near the proposed solar project site brought it to the town’s board of appeals, who overturned that approval earlier this month.
The policy shift reflects the power of grassroots activism in municipal policy, as well as the potential for opposition from affected residents on green energy projects as Maine seeks to shift toward renewable energy.
Eliot’s planning board determined in March 2021 that the solar array could be put on Odiorne Lane, a rural zone, under town law due it being a public utility facility. It proceeded to approve the project in January.
But in its ruling, the appeals board said that the planning board violated the town code by designating the project by Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based company NH Solar Garden a public utility facility without “substantive verification.”
The appeals board ultimately voted 3-1 to overturn the planning board’s decision.
Eliot residents Jay Meyer [organic farmer, goat’s milk, honey] Krickett Merrill, Pat Merrill [Washinton], Melissa Layman [Brookline] and Craig Layman [Boston], each of whom live near where the proposed solar array was initially approved for, organized against the project.
Layman [42] said she has environmental concerns, including the ecological significance of the property the solar panels would be on and the impact of utility lines “abutting” her nearby property.
“I didn’t want to see construction vehicles for months ripping up the road,” Layman said.
Layman said she supports solar power, but just wants it in “appropriate locations” away from residential areas.
She feels that solar arrays can be a nuisance when placed too close to homes due to “low-level hum” from the inverter that converts solar power into electricity.
She bought her house near Odiorne Lane three years ago and hopes to make it her “forever home.”
