Are we still thinking of continuing with nuclear power? It routinely emits harmful and unnatural radioactive elements — not to mention accidents!

As a former state representative and member of the Utilities Committee, I am aware that on our coast we must keep watch over Maine Yankee’s high-level waste. Worldwide, there’s no safe place to put it.

Additional Photos

Construction of new nuclear power plants, like this one near the existing Plant Vogtle in Georgia, continues as Japan copes with nuclear disaster. The Associated Press

Will we ever learn before it’s too late?

Maria Holt

Director,

Maine Citizens’ Monitoring Network

Bath

Trespass protection bill not anti-hunting measure 

As the sponsor of LD 559, “An Act to Protect Owners of Private Property Against Trespass,” I would like to make some corrections and clarifications concerning Deirdre Fleming’s March 20 article on my bill.

Fleming writes that I stated the issue surrounded hunters and hunting dogs trespassing on private property is focused in Washington County in Down East Maine. However, it should be noted that I said these infractions are most often occurring in the counties of Waldo and Knox, which I represent, and are in midcoast Maine. Second, Fleming writes that the bill “also suggests landowners be able to ‘signal’ their desire for written permission by flagging their land with purple forestry tape.” My bill allows for a different color of forestry “paint,” not “tape.”

A great portion of Fleming’s article concentrated on misleading statements from paid lobbyist Skip Trask, who called my proposal an “anti-hunting bill.” On the contrary, it is a very pro-hunter bill because it makes accountable the folks who are responsible for the most egregious violations of private property rights.

As a result there has recently been a 50 percent increase in posted land, which affects all hunters. My bill would require written permission for sportsmen baiting or running packs of hunting dogs in pursuit of bobcat, coyote and bear.

Unfortunately, hunting dogs are currently exempt from dog control laws and can legally go wherever they want, regardless of whether the land is posted or not. I can’t legally cross posted land with my dog; why should they?

This amounts to the government dictating who can and can’t enter private land. For the sake of farmers and private landowners across Maine, this is a loophole in the law that needs to be fixed.

Rep. Andy O’Brien, District 44

Lincolnville 

Wind power won’t solve most nagging problems 

Lexington Township has more than its fair share of black flies, which are more than abundant during the spring and summer months. They make it darned difficult to enjoy the outdoors unless you don those silly looking nets on your head! Talk about a “bad hair day!”

While pondering the fact that spring has now arrived, my thoughts naturally went to those dreaded black flies. And then my mind strayed to thoughts of how one could rid the whole area of black flies.

Silly, really, what one’s mind can conjure up before that first cup of coffee in the morning. I can’t help but wonder, with so many 4,000-foot-tall wind turbines being considered for the mountains of Highland Plantation so near Lexington Township, how many black flies will they kill as those gigantic blades whirl at such high speeds? Well, we may as well get some benefit from them if they are to be forced on us by the expedited wind law, LD 2283!

We are sitting ducks with no recourse, thanks to that poorly thought-out law. But then it was not even given a thought, was it, before those legislators signed off on it so they could get out of town at the end of a session?

Perhaps we should ship a ton of black flies to each of them in thanks for the destruction that they have rained down on Maine! Before you write me off as being a nutjob, think about the fact that I just got your attention, which is what I intended to do. Check out the facts about wind energy before you endorse a very poor idea for Maine: www.highlandmts.org.

Linda Miller

Lexington Township 

Wind power brings needed balance to state energy mix 

I spent 27 years with the Maine Geological Survey (MGS), Department of Conservation, where I served as director and state geologist. I was responsible for the supervision and administration of natural resource and economic programs of the MGS, which included mapping, monitoring, evaluating, and publishing land, water, mineral and coastal resources.

The identification and mitigation of natural and man-made hazards affecting Maine’s physical environment and providing professional advisory assistance to the state and the general public were part of my activities.

I am writing today because I feel it is critically important for our state to diversify its currently available energy resources and not continue our dependence on oil. The price is going up, and the instability in the world calls for us to do all we can to break our addiction to this capricious fuel source.

I support wind power as an important and functioning part of Maine’s power mix. I also recommend swift support for the rapidly emerging Maine energy initiatives of pellets, geothermal, natural gas, trash – and innovations in nuclear, hydrogen cell, solar and tidal power technology.

Maine citizens must work together, rather than argue about developing our energy options. If we take advantage of the times, we can develop a significant amount of wind power-both onshore and the offshore.

The fact is that wind power is available and something Maine can count on, and in combination with currently available energy sources it will help sustain our economy and provide for a better future for generations to come.

Walter A. Anderson

Yarmouth

Distance learning no panacea for education 

I always read Charles Lawton’s column in the Maine Sunday Telegram. It’s like having a well-educated friend: I don’t always agree with him, but he always has something interesting to say.

Until March 6, when he got on the subject of education. One of Lawton’s preoccupations is how to make Maine more competitive, and I read with interest how he thought Maine educators (of which I am one; I teach math for elementary teachers and English composition at UMF) could do better, taking account of new communications technology.

But he let me down. His only concrete suggestion, an impractical one, was to “lock up” the heads of Maine businesses with deans of Maine schools so we could work out how to deliver education better. How locking a bunch of administrators in a room helps I don’t know; I presume he meant to let them out again later.

He also waved his hands at the idea of asynchronous education: that the students and the experts don’t have to be in the same room at the same time. I don’t know if he’s noticed, but UMS has labored mightily to harness distance learning, as have the community colleges. And yet, as I teach calculus and English and elementary geometry, my students inevitably do better by “being there” and by good, old-fashioned getting things in on time.

Presumably people, even well-read and intelligent people like Mr. Lawton, think that asynchronous learning has a sort of magic that will make people competitive in the modern world. But when you open a business or get a job, you have to be there and do the work.

I suspect he was short on specifics because he has none. I was very disappointed.

Paul J. Gies

Wilton 

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