George Smith’s recent column stating the mountaintop industrial wind proposal for Bowers Mountain in the Grand Lakes Watershed is no big deal, and that it will not undermine outdoor recreation and tourism, was absurd and defies logic. Then again, Smith should have disclosed that his blog is sponsored in part by First Wind, the developer of Bowers Mountain.

The Grand Lakes of Downeast Maine are a national treasure, but they are under assault from First Wind.

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First Wind, doing business as Champlain Wind, has proposed installing 27 428-foot turbines on Bowers Mountian and Dill Ridge, which rise up at the headwaters of the Downeast Lake Watershed.

The watershed is one of the largest undeveloped tracts of lakes in the lower 48 states, including about two dozen lakes, many of which are connected by navigable waterways.

First Wind, which already has built on Stetson and Rollins mountains, will continue expanding the industrial wind carnage around the Grand Lakes of Downeast Maine with the development of Bowers Mountain.

This world-renowned sporting region, with its pristine setting and incredible rare dark night sky, will be ruined forever. It is time to put the brakes on and say no more mountain destruction by industrial wind projects.

Recently, I paddled through the Downeast Lakes Watershed, visiting Pleasant, Scraggly, Junior, Pocumcus and Sysladobsis lakes.

I have canoed and kayaked much of Maine and many places beyond, and I consider this watershed to be a national treasure. We encountered an abundance of wildlife on our trip, including lunar moths, beavers, eagles, turtles and a host of duck species. At night, with a sky only illuminated by the stars, the cacophony of the loons was indescribable. To desecrate this land with an industrial wind facility would be a crime against nature.

Not only would the Bowers Mountain industrial wind project visually assault the Downeast Lakes Watershed, but the blasting and leveling would cause irreversible damage to soils, hydrological flows and the unique assemblages of plants and animals. Thousands of bats and birds would be killed and many species of wildlife, including bear, moose and deer, would flee from the massive ground vibrations and the pulsating of high and low frequency noise.

This potential ecological damage is enough for the project to be stopped. In addition, however, this industrial wind project would not reduce greenhouse gases, would produce, at most, only two permanent jobs after the construction phase, would raise electric rates, devastate property values, and undermine the economic benefits of Maine’s No. 1 industry — tourism and recreation.

To add insult to injury, not only would this project be heavily subsidized by tax dollars, but all the unreliable and intermittent power from it will be exported out of Maine.

That means we would subsidize the destruction of our mountains so that we can be stripped of property wealth and pay higher electric rates. Meanwhile, First Wind of Boston earns millions of dollars. Not a great deal for Mainers.

At the public hearings at the end of June, most of those testifying were opposed to the project. Almost without exception, those in favor, including Maine Audubon and George Smith, have or will benefit financially from First Wind development in Maine. In the testimony, 300 of the 306 submissions opposed the project. This is overwhelming.

I hope that the Land Use Regulation Commission, having now witnessed problems at other industrial wind sites, will be more resolute in defending the integrity of the unorganized territories.

Mountaintop industrial wind is not a harmonious fit with wild Maine. It causes undue adverse impact to the land, wildlife and the inhabitants of rural Maine.

The first sentence of the legislative findings in the Maine Expedited Wind Energy Act states that wind development should be sited “where appropriate.” No rational person could consider erecting 27 massive industrial turbines in the heart of the Grand Lakes Watershed to be “appropriate.”

Mainers already have lost several mountain tops to profiteers. We must stop them from unleashing their bulldozers and excavators on Bowers Mountain.

LURC has the authority to curtail the gold rush of wind developers, feeding at the trough of federal and state subsidies, before Maine is transformed from a wild and bucolic paradise to an industrial wind wasteland.

For the magic of the mountains, let’s hope the commission does its job.

Jonathan Carter is director of the Forest Ecology Network.