MAINE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

AUGUSTA, MAINE

IN RE: ) Docket No. 2008-255MAINE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION ) November 24, 2008

Public Hearing for Finding of Public Convenience and

Necessity for the Maine Power Reliability Program

Consisting of the Construction of Approximately 350 Miles

of 34.5 kV and 115 kV Transmission Lines (MPRP)

APPEARANCES:

JAMES BUCKLEY, Hearing Examiner

SHARON REISHUS, Maine Public Utilities Commission

VENDEAN VAFIADES, Maine Public Utilities Commission JACK CASHMAN, Maine Public Utilities Commission

MR. BUCKLEY: We are going to go ahead and get

started now. Thank you. Good evening. This is a public

hearing of the Public Utilities Commission in a case that

involves Central Maine Power Company's request for

approval to build a number of transmission lines known as

the Maine Power Reliability Program or the MPRP. My name

is James Buckley, I'm a hearing examiner assigned to this

case. On my right is the chairman of the PUC,

chairperson, I should say, of the PUC, Sharon Reishus, and

on my left is Commissioner Jack Cashman, and to Jack's

left is Commissioner Vendean Vafiades. Fred Bever who is

our communications person is way back there, the other

person from the PUC. And we have a hearing reporter here

this evening so that a transcript will be made of

everybody's testimony. As many of you know, this case

involves a new 345 kilovolt line basically from Orrington

to the New Hampshire border in Eliot. In particular, the

345 line which will go from the Augusta area, go through

Litchfield, Monmouth, Greene, and into Lewiston/Auburn on

into Yarmouth is a section probably of interest tonight.

There is also a new 115 kilovolt line proposed in the

Lewiston area. For this public witness hearing, I have a

sign-up sheet. I have a bunch of names. If you want to

testify tonight, just get your name on the list.

Otherwise, you don't have to be on the list, but you will

go last if you are not on the list. There are two ways

that you can talk to the commission tonight. You can give

sworn testimony which means if -- anything that you say

can be used as evidence by the commission in this case.

The commission follows very similar rules of court in

deciding this case so that it has to consider evidence.

If you don't want to be sworn, that's fine. You can just

speak to the commission and we can listen to your

arguments much like if you send a letter, but it just

can't be used as evidence in deciding the case. The other

thing I wanted to mention, this is really a chance for

you -- citizens to give their comments or opinions to the

commission. It's not really the opportunity for you to

ask a lot of questions and for us to answer them. I will

try to straighten out any procedural questions that may

come up if people are curious. And after the recorded

part of the hearing, I will stay and try to answer some

questions. Since the commission is a deliberative body,

we and they couldn't really give our opinions about the

substance of the case anyway because they need to wait

before all the evidence is in before they decide things

such as that. I guess that's all I wanted to mention

before we get started. My intent is just to go down the

list. Actually, for those who know that they want to

speak tonight and they know they want to be sworn, I will

swear in everybody who wants right now. If you stand up

and raise your right hand. If you decide later and you

weren't sworn, I can swear you in at that time.

Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm

that the testimony you will give in this proceeding will

be wholly truthful?

(Audience Members Sworn In.)

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. The other thing I

wanted to mention, time limits. There is a large number

of people who want to speak tonight. If people could keep

it down to about five minutes, that would give a chance

for everybody to have their say and wouldn't make -- some

people near the bottom of the list might have to leave

before they have their chance, so if you could keep that

in mind, we would appreciate it. With that, I will call

the first name which is Dominique Casavant.

MR. CASAVANT: I guess I have to stand here. My

name is Dominique Casavant. I am a Ph.D. physicist. I

have also been -- received grants to be at the Institute

For Energy Analysis in Oak Ridge and also grants to go to

the Storer Energy Institute in Golden, Colorado. I

have -- I was a member of the Vermont State Nuclear

Advisory Panel for 15 years. I have taught physics for 15

years at St. Michael's College. Much of my effort has

been in energy. I received a Fulbright grant to go to

Morocco and do work on solar energy in Morocco also. Now

I would like to indicate that, yes, I do own land where

the line is going to go through in Maine close to Allen

Pond, so it would affect me. However, I must tell you

that less you think perhaps I'm just another -- I think

perhaps I have another point that I want to make. Ladies

and gentlemen of the panel, the era of concentrated

sources of energy is over. The time has come for you to

consider distributed energy sources. We could replace our

concentrated energy sources with -- with distributed

energy sources, that is energy which is produced by roof

panels, energy which is produced by wind mills, would not

require -- would prevent us from having to consider the

idea of spending money on a technology which is past. And

so I encourage you to discourage this on the basis that

now you have an opportunity to take money which would be

spent to solidify concentrated energy sources and take

that money and see how better it could be spent on

distributed sources. So that is the gist of my particular

thing. I also would like to point out that before you do

this, you also should look at whether Central Maine Power

regulates its variation in energy, daily use of energy

well, does it really control that well, what is the excess

of energy that they have at night because they have failed

to do some kind of work that would actually store the

energy during the nighttime by having some way of storing

that energy during the night, which can be done in a

variety of ways, which I won't go into, but I'm sure that

you are familiar with, so that you can regulate the thing

so that you can take the power which is now -- that you

now have and better use it for effective distribution of

energy. That is the essence of my statement. If you have

any questions, I will be glad to answer any questions you

might have.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Next name is Mike

Parent. While Mike is coming up, I could add that among

the things the commission will look at, if they agree that

there's a need that must be met, that CMP is supposed to

look at non-transmission things like distributed and other

kinds of generation as part of the case.

MR. PARENT: How do you do? Mike Parent, land

abutter, 156 Old Webster Road. I'm concerned with this

project. This segment 17 corridor was supposed to have

been one of the major arteries coming through the state

from Gulf Island to -- (inaudible.) This thing here

should have had a corridor where we could turn around and

compare notes. This has been the only route planned in

this segment. There are 24 abutters that turn around and

have close proximity to their homes. They all need to

have attention, they need to turn around and be considered

for other means of power poles so that the lines will go

in and get the electromagnetic fields away. One of my

concerns is electromagnetic fields. It is high. It's

going to be -- it's going to be -- at the edge of the

corridor, it's going to be 13.7 milligauss. Right now, we

have 1 milligauss. These things here by Dr. Bailey turned

around and said that that was on the low side and I

anticipate these things to be about 22 milligauss. This

is something that I'm alarmed with. There are studies

being done on an everyday basis. Nobody wants to stick

their neck out and turn around and say that there is

something going on with electromagnetic fields, but there

has to be because they keep studying it. I want the panel

to turn around and really look for the people. The clear

cutting of the buffer, we are going to turn around and

lose every tree that's out there. They are going to

chemically spray the tree stumps and everything so the

growth does not come back. We sit on an aquifer. We turn

around and want our water protected. Our well is within

100 feet of the right-of-way. This is just not

acceptable. I mean if they are going to spray chemicals,

we want to be concerned. That is our drinking water. The

other thing we have is new noise limitations. The 115

kilovolt line turns around and is basically quiet. We

hear nothing. We put this line in through our -- near our

properties, this is going to turn around and emit noises

which is going to be even worse during foul weather. And

it's also going to turn around and affect our property

values. Our property values are going to take a drop in

the soft market that we have now. We are going to turn

around and have somebody come over, pull in our yards,

there will be no buffer, we are going to see these lines,

we are going to see these poles. Our property value is

going to take a dive and we are not going to be able to

give this stuff away. We are asking the panel to turn

around and be very cautious in what they do. Other states

have a status quo where what's there, we don't go any

higher, but we would like to turn around and make sure

that you are working for the people and the other 24

abutters that are in this segment 17. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Next name is Pat

Defilipp.

MR. DEFILIPP: Yeah, my name is Pat Defilipp.

I'm a resident of Auburn, Maine. I work for Reed & Reed.

We're a construction firm in Woolwich, Maine. We have had

the good fortune of being able to be involved with the

wind projects to date in this state, the Mars Hill

project, the Stetson project, the Beaver Ridge project,

and we are starting to work on the Kittery project. We

have seen what these projects can do for the state in

terms of jobs and in terms of tax dollars and in terms of

just an infusion of dollars to stores, hotels, that type

of thing. We just think it's important that this project

passes. Without this project, the state is going to be

limited to how many more projects are allowed. The grid

system is reaching its capacity and there is just going to

be no room for new projects to develop. And we think this

would be a real shame for the state. Wind projects are a

source of clean energy, they are going to be an economic

shot in the arm for Northern Maine, and we think it's

important that it continues. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thanks. Next name is Julian

Holmes. Speak into that microphone right there. That

will be great.

MR. HOLMES: Right here?

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

MR. HOLMES: Does this raise?

MR. BUCKLEY: No, it will bend, but it won't get

any higher.

MR. HOLMES: My name is Julian Holmes. I live

in Wayne. Good evening, fellow citizens, and members of

the Maine Public Utilities Commission. As a citizen

activist since the '50s, I feel compelled to note my

objection to this unseemly proposal to charge taxpayers

and rate payers with the cost of its implementation. It

is a proposal by elitists to expand beyond public needs

Maine's share of power production and power transportation

to benefit not only Maine corporate interests, but also

interests in other New England jurisdictions and other

states in our country and in Canada. It's a plan that has

allowed elitists to influence the specific location of

high tension lines to service large incineration plants.

These facilities are illegal under LD-141-2006 through a

faulty legislative procedure that precluded public

commentary that would address proposals for incinerators

that can generate hazardous air, ground and water

pollution when they are allowed to burn hazardous waste,

much of which is imported from other states. Maine

arrested the public citizen who exposed that fraud and New

Hampshire banned the incineration of demolition and

construction hazardous waste which unfortunately Maine

allows, so Maine is the willing trash repository for

hazardous waste no one wants and Maine residents suffer

the environmental consequences. Such environmental terror

is foisted on us in order to maximize corporate profits

and I resent these inappropriate threats to our health and

our welfare. Such mistreatment of taxpayers is

commonplace in Maine. For instance, we worked hard for

years to ban MTBE in Maine gasoline and we were fought and

hassled by the State Bureau of Health and the Maine DEP

which disparaged citizen complaints of the health threats

to people who must breathe the exhaust products of MTBE

combustion in motor vehicle engines. Ultimately, a

Rutgers University study confirmed the citizen complaints.

The people had been right all along. The State of Maine

was wrong. The citizens persevered and the State now says

it is enforcing a ban of automotive MTBE. May I suggest

that as in Maine's -- as in Maine's arbitrary and

capricious crime of poisoning its people with MTBE, your

proposed expansion of the electric power grid in Maine and

the unresolved health aspects of such a move are once

again arbitrary and capricious -- capricious invasions of

our peaceful communities and potential attacks on our

collective health. One of the most insidious aspects of

your power grid crime is the power grab and cover-up of

your real reasons for the theft of our space, namely, to

benefit your corporate friends. Your arrogant attack on

the commonweal is naked, publicity -- publicly financed

corporate terrorism. It does not befit your office of

public responsibility. Please bring such activities to a

halt. Sincerely. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: If you do have a written

statement, you can leave it with the hearing reporter.

Thank you.

MR. HOLMES: I will be glad to answer any

questions if you have any.

MR. BUCKLEY: Guess there are no questions.

Next person is Gary Robitaille.

MR. ROBITAILLE: Gary Robitaille, land abutter.

You can relax, I don't think you are a terrorist or a

thief. I do have great concerns. I would like first to

request the commission to expand the boundaries, consider

legislation or a ruling to give 100 meters per 100,000

kilowatts. I abut the land. With the current

right-of-ways, their right-of-way according to them is

going to be right through my house. In order to do this,

I have to at this point finance my own lawyer to go do a

deed research to defend CMP from, you know, plowing next

to my yard. We have great concerns. That's a lot of

power they are planning to drop through and the

right-of-way they are trying to fit is a tiny corridor.

The reason they are choosing this, it's an existing

corridor. I have no doubt we need to update the grid, but

right there, it really needs to be looked at. CMP has

been fairly irresponsive in doing that in our view. We do

have concerns in the long-term about how they treat the

land afterwards, noise, and the fact that it's a lot more

than the existing corridor. This is huge and it's going

to damage not only property values, but the noise. In our

house, you can currently hear the 145s, so I'm sure we

will hear the 345s. So I encourage you, please, look out

for the land abutters. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Susan Hayward.

MS. HAYWARD: Thank you. My name is Susan

Hayward. I'm president of the Stanton Bird Club and there

are several Stanton Bird Club members with me tonight.

Just stand quickly. Thanks.

The Stanton Bird Club founded in 1919 owns and

manages wildlife sanctuary property in Maine, primarily

two sanctuaries, one here in Lewiston at 357 acres

called -- (inaudible) -- Nature Sanctuary right here in

the City of Lewiston and the other one is Stanton Bird

Club owns and manages a 160-acre wildlife sanctuary called

Woodbury Wildlife Sanctuary in Monmouth and Litchfield

which would be segment 15 of concern here. We have

provided continuous best practices stewardship of this

property with its inclusive Davis family cemetery since

1929. It will be our 80th anniversary there next year.

The proposed alternative CMP route in order to avoid the

Tacoma Lakes region cuts through the heart of this

sanctuary, including our gateway entrance area, the

cemetery, wildlife habitats will be destroyed, an

important wildlife corridor will be permanently disrupted,

environmental education programming will be diminished,

and protected open land for public access will be lost.

In the whole 350-mile widening project for increased

electrical reliability across Maine, this is the only, I'm

going to say that again, this is the only wildlife

sanctuary directly affected and requiring land acquisition

to accomplish the goals of Central Maine Power Company.

This is an opportunity for Central Maine Power Company to

show the rate payers of Maine and the rate payers of New

England that conservation is indeed a priority for this

corporation. The officers, directors and members of the

Stanton Bird Club are all asking that an alternative route

be determined to avoid Woodbury Wildlife Sanctuary. It's

time for CMP to step up to the plate, put wild lands

protection first, show their true conservation colors, and

allow this unique local national resource to remain

unscarred and available to the wildlife and the public.

Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Next name is Joseph Nota.

MR. NOTA: Good evening. My name is Joseph

Nota. I live at 17 Riley Street here in Lewiston. My

wife and I have resided in our home for over 30 years.

The location of our home is exactly what we were looking

for. We are very concerned about the proposed CMP

345-kilovolt transmission line project that will be going

through our area. This existing corridor which already

has 115 kilovolts abuts our property. There are three

very important issues that we have about this project.

Number one, health issues. The serious effect of EMFs,

electromagnetic fields, and cancer related deaths,

illnesses such as breast cancer, childhood leukemia, and

its long-term effects with other diseases. We have a

daughter that was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the

age of 13. Today, she's insulin dependent. The family

that we purchased our home from, over 30 years ago, they

also had a daughter that was diagnosed with diabetes.

Coincidental? Maybe, maybe not. We also lost family pets

to tumorous cancer. As I speak, my wife and I are dealing

with our own health problems. There are nine other

families on our street. Throughout the years, we have

shared the grieve with our neighbors, with the death of

husbands, wives and grandmothers, for a total of five

decedents on our street. Next issue, environment. How

will this project affect the wildlife that surrounds this

area? How will this project protect them? How will the

project be maintained maintenance-wise and the growth of

future trees and other vegetation? Will the use of

herbicides be used or other chemicals, and if so, how will

it be prevented from encroachment on my property and

others? What will happen health-wise and its long-term

effects. The constant noise pollution that will be

emitted from the power lines, more humming will be coming

from those lines than there is now. Finally, property

value. This project will definitely have a big impact on

my property. No one will want to purchase a home that

borders a power line of this size. I'm sure the members

of this commission wouldn't. Property will devalue when

this project is completed if it hasn't already. Of all

the above, how can this be remedied? In closing, I would

like to thank the commission for listening to my statement

and we would like to continue to have our retirement home

a serene house and not a death house.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, Mr. Nota. Next name is

Robert Fogg, and after Mr. Fogg, Tammy Noyes.

MR. FOGG: Good evening. My name is Robert

Fogg. I'm a resident of Lewiston. I live on Old Greene

Road and I live next to the power lines. Like many of the

people that just spoke, my wife and I have concerns about

the increased size of the lines and the power going

through, how it will affect our property value, how it

will affect our neighbors' children. I think there is

many issues here that I would urge you folks to take a

real hard look at. For us, this seems to be a bit of a

bitter pill to swallow. However, what makes it I think a

little more bitter is that most of this power from what I

understand is going out of state. In fact, from what I

understand, 92 percent of this power is going out of

state. I guess I don't understand how this is going to

benefit the people of Maine, especially when we are I

believe looking at a -- excuse me -- a rate increase of

8 percent by CMP. It would be one thing to be able to

deal with this if it was going to benefit the people of

Maine and stay in the State of Maine, however, that's not

the case and I would strongly urge you again to take a

good hard look at this and realize it looks like there is

many people that are going to be affected for the people

in Southern New England and it seems that happens a lot

here in Maine, so thank you for your time.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Tammy Noyes and then

Jean Elie. While we're waiting for Ms. Noyes to come up,

I can say CMP filed the case and said the reasons for it

are for reliability reasons so that the grid in their

service territory in Maine is in the condition that it's

supposed to be like on the hottest summer days so that the

wires don't overheat and can provide power and be safe, so

CMP filed the case just for reasons for Maine, not for --

for delivering power out of state. Go ahead.

MS. NOYES: We are referred to as Section 17,

but we have names. I'm Tammy, I live with my husband

David, and our two wonderful boys, Cameron who is eight

and Christian who is three years old. My boys are

asthmatic. My oldest son Cameron is a sever asthmatic, so

to keep him safe, we tore up all the rugs and we put down

laminate flooring. We bought a wonderful home on a dead

end street so they could play with no traffic so the

children would be safe. We moved into a home on a

relatively safe neighborhood where all the neighbors are

very nice just so we could keep our children safe. After

we moved there, my son Cameron got two lymphomas, one

under his armpit the size of a baseball that had to be

surgically removed, the other the size of a marble in his

throat the doctors are watching closely. I did some

research and -- at the library and a book by Ellen

Sugarman warning electricity you may have may be hazardous

to your death. In a 1989 OTA report, epidemiologist

Genevieve Malouski from John Hopkins University reported

on a four-year study of 50,000 New York telephone company

employees with varying EMF exposure. The study found

workers with high exposures had high rates of cancer, for

some as high as seven times the expected rate,

particularly leukemia and lymphoma, workers with the

highest exposure, nearly twice the amount as other

cancers. So we are doing all this to keep our family

safe. CMP is putting in an upgrade on an existing line

that gives off massive EMF. We are getting conflicting

reports on how many feet away we are supposed to be. All

I know is that we are just 20 steps away from CMP's line

from our home. I don't think anyone would want to buy a

home with the upgraded lines if they wanted to keep their

family safe like we do. I'm doing everything I can and

capable of doing to keep my family safe. That's why I'm

standing before you elected officials so you can hopefully

start helping us as well. I really don't want to see or

leave the home we love so much and put so much money into

on a budget. We don't have money to put into another home

or to start over. It would truly be a hardship. Thank

you for your time on this very important matter.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. After Jean Elie is

Ruth Benjamin.

MS. ELIE: Hi, I'm Jean Elie and I would be an

abutter to the proposed 345-kilovolt line in Lewiston and

I feel that the overhead lines proposed would expose me

and my residents to real immeasurable effects from

magnetic electric -- the fields and noise and I feel very

strongly that we and especially our children should not

have potentially fatal risks imposed on us. There is also

an obvious negative effect on our property values. CMP

might try to trivialize these effects, but in talking to

several real estate agents, I have yet to find one that

thinks there will be no negative impact on our property

value. I read some articles trying to look at EMF and

found a couple of things I think are of note. The World

Health Organization concluded that a policy recommendation

that came out in 2007 that power frequency magnetic fields

are classified as possibly carcinogenic, IARC2B

carcinogens, on the basis of childhood leukemia. And the

Institution of Engineering and Technology also states that

current assessment is that there is credible scientific

evidence of a possible risk from electric and magnetic

fields for childhood leukemia, and so therefore, I would

like to ask where options to reduce risks exist, I would

think that it is probably sensible to take them. I would

urge the PUC to consider burying the lines through areas

where they come within 300 feet of homes or schools. A

cost comparison -- and I did ask this question at a

technical conference and they said that this was not

looked into -- of using HVDC light technology in burying

the lines would show this would be a more cost effective

method of burying. And I do have an article I can give to

you on that. The cost savings of preventing fatal cases

of childhood leukemia should be considered. I also feel

there are probably alternate routes that should be

considered that may still use CMP corridors, but would not

be the massive eye sore corridor proposed through our

Lewiston neighborhood. It will expose abutting homeowners

to two 115-kilovolt lines as well as the proposed 345 for

a total of 575 kilovolts. If it approves the project, the

PUC should set some conditions now that more and more

information is emerging about negative effects of exposure

to electric and magnetic fields that limit the lines going

through any corridor in Maine. As Mike Parent mentioned,

we have been told that we are currently exposed to about

1.2 milligauss of magnetic field in segment 17 at the edge

of the right-of-way. The proposed 345 will increase that

exposure to 13.6 milligauss. That's 11-1/2 times the

exposure that we now have. The MPRP's need for new

transmission lines is based on a model of power generation

that relies on a few power plants to supply electricity

for many residents across a large area and it's going to

require a huge investment in those substations and power

lines. I feel that Maine should be looking at a model of

distributed generation with generator stations close to

where the load is used to help produce the need for

additional transmission lines to handle peak demand. In

light of all that is currently occurring in our economy,

we will be negatively impacted for a number of years and I

feel that CMP's model assumes too much growth and too high

peaks. Continuing to construct more and more power lines

is just encouraging high electric consumption which I'm

sure CMP wants because it means increased revenues, but it

makes more sense to use those funds that will be needed to

build these power plants and lines in our region to

stimulate conservation that would be good for both the

local economy and the environment. CMP manages power

lines, so of course their answer to energy problems is to

build more power lines. I also have an article I would

like to give to you that in September of this year, from

the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

titled Perfecting the Power Grid and it states that soon

digital control of the power grid with comprehensive

electric sensors operating at the same speed as the power

flow will allow utilities to reroute power instantly and

utilities will be able to increase existing lines capacity

without exceeding any thermal limits or requiring new

lines. Digital electronic control will make the delivery

system self-correcting and self-healing and problems will

be islanded rather than cascading and there should be no

outages. I assume CMP is aware of this technology, but is

trying to railroad these new lines through to increase

their profits before Maine's commission has time to

thoroughly examine these alternatives that would prove

that this project is unnecessary for reliable power in

Maine. Please take the necessary action to protect our

rate payers from the unnecessary costs of this project and

to protect the residents and their homes from health and

environmental impacts that these lines will impose. Thank

you.

MR. BUCKLEY: After Ruth Benjamin is George

Benjamin.

MR. BENJAMIN: Good evening. Thank you for --

MR. BUCKLEY: You must be George.

MR. BENJAMIN: I must be George. And I'm

speaking for both me and my wife. And my wife and I are

very supportive of all the presentations and are here to

show that support. And we are also very interested in

knowing what's happening in the Durham, Auburn part of the

area and we would like very much to get some information

in that regard. Thank you very much and good luck.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Mr. Benjamin, if you

want to wait until the end, we do have some maps here, if

you want to look, and I can try to help you find where on

the map you are located.

MR. BENJAMIN: Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Next person is Ray Leblond and

after Ray is Senator John Nutting.

MR. LEBLOND: Good evening. My name is Ray

Leblond. I live at 1087 Main Street in Lewiston. We were

told recently by a CMP rep that a substation was to be

built approximately 500 feet from our property, 20-acre

large substation. With the reports of EMF health issues

being inconclusive, we are obviously concerned that a

substation of that size could have damaging effects to our

health, not to mention the negative effect it will have on

surrounding property values. We hope that CMP would

consider coming up with an alternate plan that is less

harmful to the people of Lewiston and their property

values. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. After Senator Nutting

is George Viscarelli.

MR. NUTTING: Good evening. First off, thank

you very much for having this public hearing. It's not

only -- these lines are not only concerns to residents of

Lewiston/Auburn, they are very much a lot of concern in my

state senate district which is Greene and Leeds and Wales.

I am -- I'm wearing one of my agricultural ties just to

remind you that these proposed increases in transmission

lines really go through a lot of agricultural land being

used for crops, animals, vegetables, and there is great

concern there. By my calculations, 1-1/2 million dollars

could be used to put solar panels on 250,000 homes, and to

me, that is something that I'm glad to learn from the

public advocate is another issue that you will be looking

at and considering. Another thing the public advocate

mentioned and I was glad to learn was that there is

possibly interest from another company of putting an

undersea line from Wiscasset to Boston. I think that is

another option that I want you to -- urge you to strongly

look at. But in talking -- the last point I want to make

is in talking to friends that have businesses and homes in

Aroostook County where they are served by the Public

Service Company which is hooked to Canada, their rates for

electricity are much, much lower than ours. And I know

that we in this area are not hooked to Canada because

there's a short distance between Bangor Hydro's lines and

Public Service lines that we need connected, but I urge

you to also consider the fact that do we really need to be

part of ISO New England in the future shipping all that

power to Massachusetts and Connecticut through these huge

lines, would it make more sense to hook Bangor Hydro to

Public Service and have us rely upon Canada rather than

Southern New England. And with that, I want to thank you

again for the opportunity to testify this evening.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. After Mr. Viscarelli

is -- I think it's Claire Dumais.

MR. VISCARELLI: I changed my mind about making

a statement right now.

MR. BUCKLEY: Okay. Sure. Then Claire Dumais

and Betty Turgeon after Ms. Dumais.

MS. DUMAIS: Good evening, Commissioners. My

name is Elaine Dumais. Sorry it looks like Claire.

MR. BUCKLEY: Sorry. I should know that.

MS. DUMAIS: I live at 228 Dyer Road in

Lewiston. Like many people here tonight, I live on

property adjacent to CMP's corridor where a proposed

345-kilovolt line would be located as part of the MPRP

project. The construction of this project would clear-cut

the existing tree filled buffer standing between my home

and the current set of 115 kV lines which stand 216 feet

away. It would place an additional 75-foot tall set of

poles supporting the new line within 125 feet of my home.

These poles would be 30 feet taller than those already

existing in the right-of-way and would tower 40 feet

higher than my house. Research on the harmful effects of

EMF from high voltage power lines is controversial and

inconclusive. Nevertheless, a link to childhood leukemia

has been established and is enough to create the

perception of a health hazard and resulting fear in the

marketplace. In my case, prospective buyers would clearly

see a large high voltage power line within direct view and

close to my house. Additionally, my property's scenic

vista would be visually polluted forever changing its

natural beauty. This vista is a large part of the appeal

of my home and makes its location desirable. And you will

see a picture attached. According to data published in

the Journal of Appraisal Research, a home's value is

significantly impacted when the property is in close

proximity and has a pronounced view of high voltage power

lines. Realtors who are driving prospective buyers to

listed houses report that some buyers will not get out of

the car to even look at such homes and will prefer

competing homes in a similar price range. In a depressed

real estate market, this could effectively make a home

nearly impossible to sell. Although time may help ease

some buyers' avoidance, not every homeowner who lives near

the corridor plans to remain there for the next 10 years

waiting for that time. Alternatives to this project such

as rebuilding and reconfiguring the lines and existing

clearings should be considered. Configurations that

preserve tree buffers as much as possible and place lines

farther away from residences should be applied. Attached

is a cross-section of the configuration that conforms to

T56 standards that I put together and could be used in my

neighborhood as well as others in Lewiston. Arguments

will be made that these accommodations would increase the

project cost, but the comparative costs to individual

homeowners is much higher both in lost equity and quality

of life. In conclusion, like many Maine people, my home

is my sanctuary and my largest financial investment. I

plan to use its equity to help fund my retirement.

Although I might understand the probable need to upgrade

Maine's transmission grid, I would implore CMP to do so in

a manner that is socially responsible and preserves the

health, financial assets and quality of life its abutters

now enjoy, so I would say to CMP give us a power grid that

provides for the needs of Maine without taking resources

from your neighbors to achieve it. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: After Betty Turgeon is Ethan

Miller.

MS. TURGEON: My name is Betty Turgeon and my

husband Norm and I live at 198 Ferry Road where we have

had the house for 25 years. We have raised our family

there. We have a grandchild coming in April. We are

abutters with 1184 feet along the corridor. Our major

concern is the clear cutting of that entire corridor. At

present, the two 115 lines are not visible from our

property. If this buffer was indeed clear-cut, it would

be a clear-through view of everything behind our property.

And our corridor, as has been stated before, instead of --

contains a total of 575 kilovolts. The EMF fields are a

concern, even if not positively proved. The number of

studies bear witness to the fact that we need to err on

the side of caution. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. After Ethan Miller is

Bruce Damon.

MR. MILLER: Good evening. My name is Ethan

Miller. I'm part of an organization called Clark Mountain

Sanctuary which is a conservation organization that's an

abutter to the power line corridor in Greene. I'm also

here speaking generally as a concerned citizen. First, I

want to say that I'm really honored to be speaking with my

fellow citizens here in this room who have done such

incredible research to learn about the issues, research

that none of us are paid to do and it appears that the

folks that are paid to do it may not actually be doing

that research, so I want to honor the people in the room

who are doing what others -- what we are paying others to

do. I want to say that this whole model of economic

development that's represented here by these power lines

is a bankrupt model of economic development. We are

talking about a continuation of a long tradition of what

some people might call colonialism here in Maine. This is

a tradition of Maine being a place where we generate

things and we generate resources and we ship them out of

state for the profit of large corporations and a small

group of wealthy elite. And this continues that tradition

quite well. We may say that Maine is going to move from

being what was once a paper colony to now being a trash

colony as we -- as we burn construction and demolition

debris shipped in from other states in order to generate

power, not to mention burning trees. Biomass to me is a

fairly dumb way to generate electricity. Take a tree that

takes 40 years to grow and then burn it to make energy,

sounds like a pretty bad idea. I think that because --

Professor Casavant's model of distributed generation I

think is a crucial one that we need to consider. I think

we also need to understand that there's an economic model

that corresponds to that distributed generation. It's

become really clear to us in this economy that is

controlled by giant corporations, that when just a few of

those corporations fall part, the whole economy falls like

dominos. So here again, we are continuing the tradition

of having a power structure that is relying on one large

corporation, when instead, we could choose models of

economic development that are actually developing

alongside of that distributed generation, actually helping

distribute ownership and control of the generation where

we put the control cooperatively in the hands of the

communities that are benefiting from that energy. And I'm

certain that that would create more stable jobs, probably

create more jobs, and certainly a more stable economy for

the people of Maine. But I guess I also want to suggest,

without knowing you all and recognizing that, that I'm not

entirely convinced -- I would need to be convinced by this

commission that you are willing to consider those kinds of

alternatives. When I look at the name of this hearing,

the power reliability hearing, and I learn -- we have

learned earlier that that is actually directly from CMP's

proposal, it sounds to me like you just took some of CMP's

propaganda and turned it into the name of the public

hearing, so that makes me wonder who you are actually

working for. I mean it's not -- it's not too hard to see

that this actually is about shipping power out of state

and it's not just about reliability for the people of

Maine. So again, we know who pays you, but who are you

actually working for. I've been to a lot of public

hearings. It's clear to me that public hearings are

not -- are very rarely if ever actually public listenings.

It's not a democratic process to have appointed

commissioners make decisions and not be accountable to the

citizens. I just want to be clear about that. And I want

to remind people in this room that if we are going to

create democracy in this situation, we need to organize

and we need to organize outside this room and we need to

apply pressure in all kinds of different ways. There's a

sign-up sheet out on the table for people who want to get

involved in that process. And I also just want to end

with a quick little story. After the revolutionary war,

the great proprietors from Massachusetts claimed that they

owned Maine. Meanwhile, all kinds of Mainers were

settling down and doing hard work to create farms here.

And when the great proprietors sent their surveyors to

Maine communities to try to evict people so they could

continue that process of colonialism, these farmers in

Lewiston and Greene and Leeds and other towns all along

this power line corridor organized. And in the middle of

the night, they dressed up in costumes and they ran the

surveyors off. And I want to suggest that if this process

continues like the runaway train that it looks like it's

going to be, that we might want to learn a little bit from

our predecessors. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Next is Bruce Damon and after

Bruce Damon is Art Schaefer.

MR. DAMON: Good evening, Mr. Buckley. This is

the area that we are concerned about. I'm here to

represent the Stanton Bird Club of Lewiston/Auburn and its

400 members in regards to the proposed rerouting of the

354 K right-of-way in the Litchfield/Monmouth section of

3025 and 212. The map I gave you shows the area in

question. The blue area is the Stanton Bird Club Woodbury

Nature Sanctuary. This is the only conservation land and

only nature sanctuary that is directly affected by the --

by the proposal. As it is proposed, the new bypass

would -- the new route would bypass a number of

residential properties in and around Woodbury Pond and it

would unfortunately create a huge bi-section of wildlife

corridor that is in excess of 2,000 acres that exists

north and east of Woodbury. The Stanton Bird Club

property would be deforested to the extent of about

17 acres. And as you can see, there would be another area

of about 10 acres, a triangular shaped piece, that would

be isolated between the old power line and the new one.

This area of course is going to be devastated because of

the impact from both sides. In addition, the proposed

route would desecrate a century old family cemetery that

exists on a property that Stanton has protected for the

last 80 years. At the October 30 technical session, when

questioned why the new right-of-way was necessary, CMP

responded that there were issues regarding the placement

of pole 186 in the water at the outlet of Woodbury Pond.

It seems unreasonable to assume this is an insurmountable

situation considering the complexity of some of the other

water crossings along the route, particularly the ones in

Bucksport, around the former Maine Yankee site, and the

major river crossings of the Androscoggin, Kennebec,

Penobscot, and in particular, the Piscataqua down in

Portsmouth. As with most complicated issues, there are

usually more than one answer depending upon how you ask

the question. At the technical conference, I asked an

engineering question and I got an engineering answer, but

I wonder if I had asked about the health related issues of

EMF and electromagnetic fields, if I would have gotten a

different response. With only a 215-foot wide

right-of-way and with the high density of properties

around Woodbury Pond, I wonder if the real issue for the

new six miles of right-of-way really isn't one of trying

to establish sufficient clearances from the new 345 K line

to those existing structures. We have already heard that

here in Lewiston, there are already concerns about them

working within a 400-foot corridor. Here, we are talking

about one only half as wide. The N-5 route, while we

realize this is probably too far along in engineering to

be stopped, according to the original proposal and all the

published documents up until the end of September, created

no new right-of-way. This alternative route creates in

excess of six miles of new right-of-way, cuts through

forested undeveloped property which will lead to

degradation of that area from a wildlife standpoint as

well as from the -- will lead to additional unrestricted

uses by things like snowmobiles, ATVs, will cause erosion

problems, and there will be additional spraying to

maintain that by the power company. I have some questions

that -- I'm going to leave this with the commission, but I

have a couple questions I wish the PUC could seek response

from CMP, and if we could get an answer, it would be

wonderful. Will the new right-of-way as proposed be used

only for the placement of 3025? That's what shows

currently. If that is so, why is it requested to be

250 feet in width instead of 170 foot which would be the

minimum length for a single set of poles, or at the

minimum, the 215 feet that they were requesting for

multiple sets which included 212, 41 and 3025 in this

area? Will the old right-of-way still be maintained in

its capacity for 212 and 41? As an alternative -- and

this is where I have tried to show you on the larger

document -- could 3025 stay within the existing corridor

up to pole 178, which is just barely to the right off

the -- off the picture, run south of the existing power

line, take out the corner at line -- at pole 186 and carry

over where you see them -- where there's a proposed

extension of the right-of-way, a small block that goes

down to the water at pole 188, could the line -- as I had

drawn a series of yellow dots across, could the line just

cross there so it did not have to have a pole in Woodbury

Pond? It would take the sharp angle out at the outlet of

Woodbury Pond and would seem to be certainly a doable

route. Now it may require that the poles there carry both

212 which is a 115 K line and 3025, but that's been done

in a number of other locations, so certainly not a

technical difficulty to accomplish. Unless of course they

want to throw in that it's cost prohibitive which for two

poles and with the elimination of the others doesn't seem

to be realistic. As a second alternative, if it is

determined that the new six miles of corridor that

devastates over 200 acres of this new property must lie to

the north of the existing power line, could it be

relocated from up by the golf course -- which if you look

at the smaller drawing in the middle, it goes up and

there's a small family cemetery right at the top up there

where it crosses Pete's Hill Road and I have drawn a line

down. That line goes down around the back side of our

pond and actually heads towards the Day's Corner

Substation which is in the existing right-of-way. That

would -- that area there would completely circumvent the

nature sanctuary and would be -- would be significantly

more distant from our property. What if any are the

recognized impacts on wildlife migration and reproduction

due to 345 K lines? I have not heard any discussion about

that, partly because most of this is an existing power

line. However, now, they are talking about six miles of

new corridor that's in open ground, so it could have a

significant impact on migration and reproduction. CMP

spoke about the social impact of the expansion of the

existing right-of-way, but never addressed the social

impact of the new six miles of corridor. The Woodbury

Sanctuary has served the educational and environmental

communities of Kennebec and Androscoggin Counties for the

last 80 years. The destruction of this unique parcel with

its irreplaceable ability to sustain and nurture all of

God's creatures for generations to come must not be

allowed to happen. Many of us can remember the odor and

brown foam that used to contaminate the rivers of our

state, all of which were the result of uncontrolled

progress. We must never forget it takes generations to

undo the mistakes of well-intentioned proposals, but the

new right-of-way should not become another example for our

children to regret. Maine, the way life should be, should

not just be a rhetorical gimmick for the benefit of the

tourists. It should reflect the pride and independence

that makes us the great State of Maine. I know that I

speak from citizens here when I ask the commission to use

sound judgment, common sense and balance as you decide on

the merits of the case before you. Please do not be

swayed by the economy or politicians to permit this

proposal to become a reality unless you firmly believe

that it's truly in the best interest of Maine and its

citizens for decades to come. We know -- please know that

we all place our respect and trust in you and that you

will do your very best to earn that respect and trust in

return. Thank you very much.

MR. BUCKLEY: After Art Schaefer is Will Neils.

MR. SCHAEFER: Good evening. I live in

Cumberland, and at the beginning of September, I was

approached by CMP and advised that they were going to

build a substation right next to my back yard. It was

going to be a hundred million dollar -- it is going to be

a hundred million dollar substation. Their representative

took me out in my back yard and said everything you can

see as far as you can see is going to be bulldozed and

leveled and going to become concrete towers and lights and

wires and put quite bait of fear into -- into me, but

assured me that I had nothing to worry about, that they

were going to run wires over my property, but they would

compensate me for my land and I wouldn't have to worry

about anything. So at their request, I signed an

authorization to allow them to come onto the property for

survey work and they did that and they did their drilling

and I waited and I didn't hear anything. And weeks and

weeks later, I called them up and -- I haven't heard

anything. They were supposed to come over and sit down

with me and my wife and explain things. Don't worry about

it, they said. I waited some more weeks. I called them

up again and I said, I'm getting real concerned, I don't

want to lose any rights. You have nothing to worry about.

We are going to be a good neighbor, I will come over and

see you. Well, another month goes by and I called the PUC

and I said, gee, I think I better become an intervener, I

don't know what's going on, I'm not hearing anything from

these people. They have got my authorization. You can't

do that anymore, it's too late. So I guess the reason I'm

here is I heard a lot about them being good neighbors and

treating people well. I got a little suspicious about how

this operation is being run. And it could be

coincidental, I don't think they sit there and worry about

me and tried to set me up or anything like that, but it

doesn't seem that things are being done the way they

should be done. And people should be kept informed,

especially when so much is at stake as we have heard

tonight from so many people. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Schaefer, it's never too late

to file a petition and intervene. You can't participate

in the conferences that have already taken place, but

going forward, you can still file a petition, if you want

to.

MR. SCHAEFER: I was given misinformation.

Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: As I said before, Will Neils is

next and then Mary Hunter.

MR. NEILS: You have a drummer back there.

MR. BUCKLEY: Evidently.

MR. NEILS: It sounds like a power plant. I bet

these folks here know what that sounds like, right? Do

you? Okay, so let's start out here. I'm from Appleton,

Maine, and this expansion plan, as ridiculous as it is, is

intended to travel through Appleton. And what's this --

the CMP -- the lights will not stay on if we don't do

this, it's really about reliability and keeping the lights

on. That seems -- that seems like totally disingenuous

coming from a corporation, but they always seem that way,

don't they? The trouble we've got here I think is that we

are being told we have to do this. And it's typical of

course, that's always what you elected or in this case

appointed -- you are appointed by the governor, right --

I'm not allowed to -- people usually do what they want to

do for the corporations and all the folks with lots of

cash. So anyways, I'm really against this. I think there

is probably I hazard to guess thousands of people around

the state who are against it now, and if tens of thousands

of people in the state understood what it was, I suspect

there would be tens of thousands of people around the

state who are against it. You can probably do the math

out. You don't seem to be hearing a lot of support here,

do you? I'm interested in this whole biomass concept.

Green and renewable apparently are terms which

corporations, bureaucrats and politicians like to apply to

burning wood for electricity. It's interesting also they

like to apply that term to burning arsenic treated wood,

PVC piping, Mercury lead paint and other highly toxic

materials imported from Connecticut, Rhode Island,

Massachusetts, places like that, which ironically are the

places which apparently need all this power, right, that

we need to get down to them so quick. It's really

important, chop, chop, that we work hard up here in this

industrial colony that Maine has always been for these

nice yuppies in Southern New England. So I think it's

really important when we frame this appropriately, when we

think about it, when we think about who is going to pay,

the communities which have already paid with decades of

cancer in the Androscoggin Valley who produced the paper

so these folks could type their important letters down in

Boston and the other communities which have been affected

by high tension power lines already, people who have

already gotten sick, the lady who spoke here so eloquently

about her son. And I think it's really, really important

that you strap up and do your jobs and recognize that the

citizens of this state have no interest in this happening,

that we recognize the power grid is already delivering

enough power to us, and if 30 to maybe 45 percent of the

power produced in the State of Maine is already traveling

out of state to these yuppies, why should we suddenly

produce more for them so that out of state owned companies

get to make the profits while we get all the toxins,

cancer and the death. I think I'm going to be against

that forever.

MS. HUNTER: Hi. My name is Mary Hunter. I

live on Pinewoods Road in Lewiston. I want to thank you

for hearing my testimony. As a resident in a neighborhood

abutting the power line corridor, I like many others are

very concerned with the environmental and property value

effects of having a total of 575 kilovolts of power

marching through a residential neighborhood. Also, like

many others, I'm also concerned with the possible health

effects of EMF, but it's the noise I want to mention

today. There's considerable research on the bad effects

of noise on health. Stress, depression, chronic insomnia

and even heart disease have been reliable attributed to

noise. Children are said to be particularly liable to the

bad effects of noise and children with behavioral issues

are particularly susceptible and this is relevant because

there are two therapeutic foster homes in our neighborhood

very close to the power lines, so I think that is really

something to be taken very seriously. A contributor to

this World Health Organization report on night noise

guidelines, which I will leave with you, recommended the

noise level for children be kept below 30 decibels at

night. That's 30 decibels total, so if the lines make

about 25 decibels of noise, which is what I read, but I

can't remember where I read it, it leaves very little room

for other noise before the total noise is potentially

unhealthy. So I really do urge you to take all possible

health issues for all possible people into account in

thinking about this project. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Jim Parakilas. And after that is

Sandra Brown-Eustis.

MR. PARAKILAS: Good evening. My name is James

Parakilas. I live at 85 Pinewoods Road by the power line

corridor and I'm an intervener in the MPRP case. The

point I would like the Public Utilities Commission to

consider is that MPRP is out of date. That may seem

surprising because the proposal is fairly new, but it

rests on projections of growing energy needs in Maine and

in New England in the coming years as well as the

presumption that we will continue to generate and

distribute electric power as we have done for decades only

on an ever increasing scale. Those projections and

presumptions have been invalidated by two events that have

taken place in the last couple of months. The first is

the worldwide recession precipitated by the seizing of the

American financial system. And the second is the election

of a new president and congress pledged to create and

implement a national energy program that will rapidly

reduce the amount of energy we consume and rapidly alter

the ways we produce and distribute energy. The first of

these events, the recession, means that whatever CMP tells

us about the urgency of expanding our transmission system

no longer applies. The company threatens that it will not

be able to supply our growing energy needs in a few years

if it is not allowed to build these giant new transmission

lines, but the recession we have entered is in fact

setting back any growth in our energy consumption. Just

as Americans are now using 8 percent less gasoline than

they were a few months ago, they are also using less

electric power and they are not about to start increasing

their electric consumption any time soon. This means at

the least, that we have some time to see what a new

national energy policy brings us. President Elect Obama

promised us an energy policy that's built on conservation

and on producing more of our energy locally. He has

promised us that the United States can reduce its energy

consumption by an astonishing 80 percent. The MPRP by

contrast is built on the premises of the Bush era, ever

increasing energy production and consumption and an ever

more interconnected distribution system. Given that the

recession gives us the opportunity to wait and see what

the new national policy on energy will be and what it can

do for us, why on earth would we rush into spending a

billion-and-a-half dollars in the middle of a recession on

a project that will evidently be out of step with that new

policy before these lines are even built. Let me add that

CMP itself doesn't believe in its projections about rising

energy needs in Maine. They don't believe their own

figures. How do I know that? Because if they believed

that Maine's energy consumption was going to grow

significantly in the next two decades, they would have

designed the MPRP to deliver a significant increase in

electric power to customers in Maine, but they haven't.

They have designed the project almost entirely to deliver

power to the New Hampshire border and from there south.

So what would Mainers get from this? Well, to build it,

we would of course get higher electrical builds in the

middle of a recession. We would get increased health

risks for those who live alongside it, risks like

increased incidents of childhood leukemia. We would get

noise pollution. We would get destruction of our trees

and our habitat and the lowering of our property values,

but we would not get any significant increase in our power

supply, and since we are not likely to need that anyway,

MPRP would not in fact make our power supply any more

reliable. What would be reliable is that we would be

paying for this, that the power would go south of here,

and that the profit would go to the owners of CMP, that is

to say a corporation headquartered in Madrid. This plan

was never designed with the best interest of Mainers at

heart, and now that we are on the verge of a new energy

order in this country, we would be just plain nuts to buy

into it when we can perfectly well wait a little while,

see what the new energy order is going to be, and figure

out an energy plan for Maine that makes sense for us

within that new order. Thank you very much for your time.

MR. BUCKLEY: After Sandra Brown-Eustis is Liam

Burnell.

MS. BROWN-EUSTIS: My name is Sandra

Brown-Eustis and I live at 166 Old Webster Road which

directly abuts the power line, so I'm an intervener in

this case. I have a couple of different issues I would

like to address to your meeting here this evening. One of

them is the noise levels that are generated by the

electrical overhead wires. Recent studies indicate that

noise tends to aggravate -- agitate the people that have

Alzheimer's and I know this to be a fact because my mother

lives with me and she has Alzheimer's. The increase in

the noise level would therefore affect her inner ear so

that she would constantly be agitated hearing the noise,

whether it was damp or not. The second thing that I'm

very concerned about is the erosion that would occur along

the abutment because I'm already suffering the effects of

ATVs and whatnot that use the corridor for recreation.

The last rainstorm we had, which was very severe, I have a

bridge that leads into my property and the water was

probably not even a foot below the bridge, so I anticipate

that if the greenery is removed, that this will only get

worse. And I'm also concerned because as other abutters

have mentioned, our aquifer would be polluted with the

constant spraying to keep the growth of trees down. Now

as far as property values go, I don't know that this would

be a long-term trend where everybody would lose out.

Usually when something this untoward happens, after

awhile, things calm down and property values would rebound

somewhat, but we haven't got that much longer for us

before retirement, so if I'm hoping to use my home to fund

my retirement as it were, I'm probably not going to have

much of a chance. So I just want you to consider these

things. And also, I found it very interesting when I went

to the other meetings, when I spoke to representatives

from CMP and I asked them if they would like to live next

to this, nobody would answer. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: After Liam Burnell is Larry

Stewart.

MR. BURNELL: Hi. My name is Liam Burnell. I'm

a farmer in the Midcoast. I apologize that I haven't done

as much research as I would have liked to to make accurate

comments this proposal, but I just found out about it on

Sunday and I think that is really indicative -- I heard

there was 12 days notice and I found out two days ago. I

think that's why there aren't more people in this room and

I think that's a deliberate move on the part of the

corporations proposing this plan. I think there should be

further scoping sessions planned so that more public

comment can be made about this because I think there is

probably about a million and a quarter people in Maine who

would be against this plan and we should hear from all of

them. First, we need to tell them about it. I want to

address first of all that eminent domain is being used to

seize property in these cases. And I know that there is

lots of precedent for eminent domain and that it's

culturally accepted, but I consider it an assault. I

don't have land, I'm not losing any land to this, but it's

a form of assault. I appreciate that word being recorded.

And it's not acceptable to take people's land by force

without their consent. I also want to address the concept

that our electricity needs are growing. This proposal is

based on a market projection of growing electricity needs.

Who has these needs? What are these needs? One hundred

years ago, nobody in Maine had any electricity needs.

There are still lots of people in Maine who don't have any

electricity needs. I don't use electricity in my home. I

don't have a wire leading to my home. My next door

neighbor uses electricity, it comes from a solar panel on

his roof. I think most people in Maine have similarly

modest -- I mean we don't all need to go back to the

pioneer days, but I'm all for having electricity at the

hospital and the school, but I think this electricity is

going to Southern New England to support growing suburbs

full of huge luxury homes, to support sporting events at

night, to electrocute prisoners, to have huge Kiss reunion

tours or whatever. These are not realistic needs. These

are things that a corporation is telling us we need and

there are generations of people now who have been sold

things that corporations told them they need that they

didn't. (Inaudible.) They are toxic and they are causing

damage to us now in this generation. These companies need

to make a dollar, and if at the end of the day, they have

made a dollar, then they have succeeded. They don't have

the public's best interest in mind. They don't have any

of our best interests in mind. As someone pointed out,

this is a trans-national corporation based in Europe. The

orders are coming directly from the hierarchy down to us

in Maine. They are telling us that we need it. They

also, you know, told us that we needed Nintendo Game Boys

and our need for all these things is increasing, but it's

not really a need, it's just something we are being sold,

just like advertising companies sell us everything else,

only this is a little more serious than an advertising

company because we have a choice if we are going to go to

Wal-Mart and buy a new plastic toy, but we don't have a

choice if they are going to build a new huge power line

across our state and divert our resources to the growing

energy needs of Southern New England. We have been told

that we need to do this upgrade or the lights are going to

go out. That's a threat. That's extortion. That's

saying if you don't give us what we want, we are going to

shut out the lights. Remember California in 2001, we will

do it again. I think they should be investigated for

comments like that. Yeah, they also -- I think a lot of

their customers nowadays are concerned about the

environment and they want to hear their energy is being

generated in a green way, green, and I want to address

that because this proposal would make it possible for all

sorts of non-green new power generators to be built and no

old power plants to be torn down. We are just simply

adding more to the electric grid. For any industry to be

truly green, it has to stand in direct opposition of the

really destructive industries out there like coal,

nuclear. I mean they are talking about making power lines

that would make it easier to transmit electricity from a

nuclear power plant built just across the border in New

Brunswick across Maine. I think general consensus in the

scientific and lay community knows that nuclear power is

not green. Nuclear waste lasts for tens of thousands of

years and there's no way to deal with it. They also want

to build something like 36 new incinerators which could

burn construction and demolition debris. Here again, I

apologize for not having enough research to tell you what

all could come out of those, but there could be a lot of

chemical fall-out from construction and demolition debris.

I'm a farmer. They want to build a bunch of these things

in the Midcoast. When that stuff rains from the sky, it

will rain on my fields, it will go into my crops and that

will go into the grocery store and people will eat it full

of toxins. That's not green. They -- incinerators can

also burn forest -- I mean trees from the forests. How is

that green? You know, we are used to consuming an amount

of electricity that we can only generate using petroleum.

That's distilled trees, millions of years of distilled

trees. If we burn off all the trees in Maine, that would

give us two years at the rate we use electricity. We are

going to have to cut down and I -- you know, like I said,

I don't think we should all move back to the pioneer days,

but we can prioritize what kind of things we want to spend

electricity on and unplug some of the silly stuff that we

have been sold. I also want to address that -- and this

is something I can't verify, but I have heard that this is

somehow tied into the 700 billion dollar bail-out of the

economy. And I can't verify that, but even the

possibility of that just makes me feel like I have to

comment. I'm a -- I'm a farmer. I had a really tough

season this year. With all my expenses taken out, I will

have made $300. I say will have because I haven't got the

money yet, supposedly next month. So I had to take out

another full-time job in the fall in order to pay my bills

for this winter and I just barely did it, but I could use

a bail-out. I make food. Food is a need. It's a much

more serious need than electricity. Humans have needed

food for their entire existence on this planet in the

geologic time or Christian time or however you measure

time. People need farms. Farmers are in trouble in this

state. Most farmers in Maine are extremely old and they

have not had a vacation. They deserve to retire. They

work every day of their lives because they are in debt,

partially because their land is under fire, partially

because they have been sold a lot of machines that ended

up not working in the long term. They have been sold a

lot of chemicals that ended up not working in the long

term. Their fields are now so full of chemicals that

pests and funguses have -- have grown to overwhelm the

chemicals, but the agricultural plants won't grow there.

These are things that we have been sold by big

corporations for generations and now we are dealing with

the mess.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Time, please.

MR. BURNELL: Can I say one more thing? Are you

the timekeeper?

MR. BUCKLEY: I did ask people to not take over

five minutes.

MR. BURNELL: I'm sorry, I apologize. I think

other things that bail-out money would be better used on

would be schools. We could teach our children to not grow

up to be suckers and buy so much of this stuff.

Hospitals. The baby boomer generation has been fed

chemicals their entire lives. They need hospital care.

Small businesses, these places are tied to their

community, they care about their community, they give back

to their community. When one falls, we don't all fall

with them like the big corporations. But of course that's

not what the money is being spent on, it's being spent on

mega infrastructure, mega corporations of course. I hate

it.

MR. BUCKLEY: Larry Stewart is next and then I'm

not sure of the first name, but Langley is the last name.

MR. STEWART: I'm Larry Stewart of 210 Ferry

Road in Lewiston. I'm an abutter and intervener and I

have a lot of concerns, but one of the first things that I

don't understand is why CMP will promise to come out and

show us where the poles and lines and explain things. To

my knowledge, nobody has seen them people. They are

called. They promise to come, but they don't come. The

other thing that I'm concerned about, as everybody is, is

the noise, okay, and when we talk about health issues, it

would seem to me that if there were no issues here, CMP

and people such as them would have had this made clear to

people a long time ago. And they can't say that it won't,

they can't say it will or won't say it won't, but I think

if there was a way to do this, they would -- with their

money, would have done it a long time ago. And the other

thing is our property values. My understanding of some of

these things, I can't believe that the house that I built

to use as part of my retirement would be sold to anybody

that would have children or grandchildren that are going

to come and live there. I don't care if it's -- if it's

three years from now or 15 years from now, their health

issues are still going to be there and it's going to be a

piece of property that is not going to be worth very much

that I put a lot of my hard earned money into. And here

again, CMP will not come along and verify that that will

have no effect because they know that it will. And we are

affecting a lot of people in the State of Maine for things

that I'm not sure is truly necessary, but that's -- that's

about what I have to say and I thank you all for coming

tonight.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Langley.

MS. LANGLEY: It's Mjae.

MR. BUCKLEY: Mjae, okay.

MS. LANGLEY: Hi. My name is Mjae Langley. My

husband Marvin and myself have been building our dream

house for three years now, a safe place for our children

and our dogs to explore and play. We currently live on

Sabattus Street in Lewiston where most of the cars fly by

50 to 60 miles an hour. I constantly worry about the kids

going near the road or the dogs chasing a tennis ball that

rolled down the driveway. I have dreamt of the day that I

could live away from the busy road and could let my guard

down a bit. We are expected to move into our new home in

two weeks after three long years. My dream has turned

into a nightmare. My concerns for the proposed 345-volt

power lines are that my children, ages three, two, and six

months, as well as the 11 children that I current -- that

currently attend my home day-care will be exposed on a

regular basis to the EMFs that are said to cause childhood

leukemia and cancer. Who in their right mind would even

continue to send their children to me for that fact? What

if in 10 years they say the EMF cause cancer, what is

anyone going to say to me now, oops, we didn't know, we

didn't think it did? That's not going to work with me.

Please do not use my family as a -- as a study to this

case. We need to use safer alternatives. The cheaper

avenues are not always the best routes. Let's not put a

price on our children, the next generation. I feel that

the safer routes have been overlooked. I believe a

full-blown study without a reasonable doubt should be done

before this project goes any further. I'm also concerned

about the effects that the lines will have on my home

day-care. Will I have a day-care after this? Probably

not. I understand that we are exposed to EMF every single

day, but when I run the microwave for five minutes or I

sit on the computer for an hour here and there, it does

not compare to the new lines they are going to be putting

up near my house that are within 150 feet where my

children sleep for 12 hours a night or 10 hours a night

and then their two-hour nap with all the other children

that I take care of that sleep in my house, that play in

my house. I'm at my house almost 24 hours a day because I

have an at home business, so I'm exposed constantly to

that. Is there a safe distance? Does anybody know? I'm

concerned that the property value of my dream home will

decrease. No one is going to want to buy it. Where am I

going to go? I can't afford to buy another home. I put

my heart and soul into this home, every penny that I have.

I'm concerned about the chemicals that will be sprayed

yearly, how they will affect my well water, how they will

affect the brook that runs in my back yard and now the

small bodies that are by -- that are by my new home. I

want facts and answers before this proceeds so that my

family can feel safe in their home like we should all feel

safe in our home. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: The next name is Carol Dennis and

after Carol Dennis is Bill Linnell.

MS. DENNIS: Thank you for the opportunity to

speak to you tonight. I am Carol Dennis and as an abutter

to the power line right-of-way on the Ferry Road in

Lewiston, I share many of the concerns mentioned here

tonight such as clear cutting of all the trees, noise,

property value decline, and most of all, health risks. I

brought with me some information on health effects of

transmission power line, magnetic and electric fields,

from a web site, www.powerlinefacts.com. This has

questions and answers about various health risks,

especially that of childhood leukemia. I ask that the

officials here all read this document. Although my home

is farther from the power lines than many of my neighbors

here tonight, I am curious at the presumption that my

family and I will stay at the part of our property

furthest from the power lines and that we will stop mowing

our lawn, that my kids will stop playing in the back yard,

and that we will basically no longer be able to use the

rear part of our property which abuts the power lines

unless we want to incur excess risks of significant health

concerns. I think that most of us who live in Maine,

Maine, the way life should be, expect that we can mow --

mow our lawns, have our kids play in the yard and

potentially farm. Many of the properties on our road are

either active farm land or were farms and have the

potential at some point to become farm land again.

However, if it is not safe to go out and mow one's lawn or

farm that land, then that opportunity is lost. I also am

concerned about transparency. I heard a question raised

at one of the previous meetings saying that when the

question was asked if Lewiston would not lose tax income

if property values fell, the answer was that that would

not be a concern to Lewiston because the increased CMP

assessment from the money they would make, including a

projected 8 percent rise in costs to Maine energy

consumers from CMP, in other words, a higher cost of at

least 8 percent following this or during this development,

that this increased CMP assessment of taxes from CMP would

more than make up for the lost income from declining

property values to the City of Lewiston. I would hope

that the City of Lewiston is more concerned with the

health -- the health and welfare of its citizens than a

pure financial statement. I would like to have the

confidence in my town and its government that that would

be the case. I also raise some other health issues and I

don't promise that I have any answers here, but I think

they should be looked into, including the effects of such

lines on pacemakers since this is something that affects

quite a few of our citizens. And I thank you for the

chance to speak tonight. I certainly am not without

understanding of the need for continuing coordination of

power grids and a connection of various other kinds of

power into our grid such as wind power, I understand this

might help connect wind power to us, however, it seems

that there might be other routes that could be taken to do

this that would not cut through the heart of a residential

district in Lewiston and other towns similarly affected.

Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: If you want to leave that -- the

web site info.

MR. LINNELL: Hi, my name is Bill Linnell. I

live at 1905 Congress Street in Portland. I'm a

co-founder and spokesman for Cheaper Safer Power. First,

I would like to just echo all the concerns I have heard

here tonight in terms of health, economics and the

environment. Clearly, the public is very well educated

about these issues. I encourage you to listen to them

very carefully. A quick anecdotal note in terms of

electromagnetic fields. I know four people who have had

leukemia, three of them are electricians, one of them

worked for Central Maine Power. At least three of them

are dead now. Now as you proceed, I encourage you to get

a second opinion. I want a second opinion about whether

this project is a good idea or not and from someone with

some expertise. I will give you a suggestion. About 15

years ago, I attended an event sponsored by the PUC down

in Portland, Maine, and the guest of honor or guest

speaker was -- (inaudible) -- from the Rocky Mountain

Institute. Now they have teams that go out and help, you

know, from cities to countries to regions with their

electrical energy needs and projections and so forth and I

would like to see what they say. And I think it would be

money well spent to hire them to come -- one of their

teams to come to Maine and evaluate the situation. And I

say that because I think a lot of this -- it does come

down to trust. I mean there are a lot of issues here that

are complicated that require a lot of expertise and, you

know, there are people -- there are corporations that, you

know, inspire you with their integrity, with their

interest in the public good and so forth, and I submit to

you that CMP is not one of these corporations. And I will

give you a couple specific examples. Back when they owned

the nuclear plant in Wiscasset, the plant was shut down.

You can verify this. These are facts. They insisted for

months and months, for years, that they had to get that

plant back on-line because we needed that cheap

electricity from Maine Yankee. Well, I came across

something and I believe it was on Central Maine Power

letterhead, it may have been from the PUC, but I think it

was CMP letterhead, and I still have it somewhere, and it

showed that Maine Yankee Power was 5 cents a kilowatt

wholesale. The whole rest of the New England grid was 1

cent per kilowatt hour, so they were actually -- the truth

was they were five times more expensive than any other

source in New England and yet they maintained and denied

that it was the opposite. Only on the last day, the day

they announced that they were closing for good, did they

finally admit in their press release that they were -- one

of the major factors in their closing was that they could

not compete with electricity on the New England market. I

will give you another example. Health. Central Maine

Power welcomed students, welcomed visitors to the plant.

One of the groups they welcomed was a bunch of students

from USM. Unfortunately, the day the USM students visited

the plant, which of course they said was safe, they had a

radiation leak in the plant and the students were exposed

to it. They had a meeting with the students a few days

later and a CMP hired doctor told the students in

addressing their concerns, he said that -- and you can

verify this, I'm sure -- that radiation actually might be

good for them, sort of like taking a vitamin. Now in

terms of economics, I think, you know, with a little

dignity, you can find that there is ample evidence that

there is more jobs and it's better for the economy if you

invest in things like conservation. And there's a book I

read years ago called Dynamos And Virgins. I encourage

you to take a look at it. It was a big power expansion

plant in California. And an organization got together and

they crunched some numbers and they said, well, instead of

investing all this money in new power generation and so

forth, if they insulated houses better, it is just too

simple, that they would actually save money, it would be

cheaper, and I think that is still the case here. Now I

do have some requests I would like to see the PUC, you

know, break down for me. One is I would like to see, you

know, the upgrades that are deemed, you know, absolutely

necessary for our current -- current energy needs, you

know, whatever -- if some of these lines are, you know,

just old and decrepit, you know, what do we actually need

minimum to satisfy our current needs. Then I would like

to see an overlay on that recognizing the trend toward

distributed power. It's a lot cheaper and more reliable

to have -- the closer your energy source is to the user,

it's much more reliable, much more reliable on the grid.

98 to 99 percent of all electrical failures are grid

related, so if I have a solar at my house or nearby, I

don't need to ship it, it's more reliable than if I ship

it hundreds of miles through a power line. Then I would

like to see -- I would like to see an overlay -- oh, I'm

sorry, in terms of that distributed power which is -- you

know, that is progress, that is the trend is distributed

power, and that's the direction we should be going in. My

sense in this plan is that -- Central Maine Power's plan

is to go backwards in sort of an old school approach to

power with big power sources. So I would like to see an

overlay where you look at some modest maybe to more

aggressive distributed power sources and what impact they

could have on the need for this and you may find you don't

need this at all. Also, I would like to see an overlay of

how much of this infrastructure is really geared towards

serving the wants of companies and folks south of Maine,

say New York, Boston. I mean I think we really need to

break that out in terms of how much of this is really for

Maine, how much of this is to serve out of state needs. I

would also like to see an overlay of how much of this is

serving Canada's desire to sell electricity to places like

New York and so forth. And I would also like to see a

breakdown in terms of how much of this is -- would hook up

to New Brunswick wind power and nuclear power. It's been

mentioned earlier, and every now and then, I see it in

some of the -- some of the description of this project, in

the fine print, I see something about Canadian nuclear,

and I would like to have some details on the projection of

how much Canadian nuclear is going to be involved in this

if it goes through. I certainly hope it doesn't. I'm

also -- I would like an answer to the question of if we

build a power line to hook up to Canadian New Brunswick

wind power, are we required to accept their nuclear power

also, because I think there's a concern there. Maybe

NAFTA or something would require if we have a power

line -- I'm guessing we would have to take Canadian

nuclear power also and I don't think we should encourage

that.

MR. BUCKLEY: If you could wrap up.

MR. LINNELL: Sure. And in terms of --

specifically in terms of nuclear, if you check in with the

Rocky Mountain Institute, they have got a lot of evidence

that nuclear power now is more -- is too expensive, just

the construction costs alone. The other concerns are very

important, very valid, in terms of health,

decommissioning, waste, so on, but the construction costs

alone now make new nuclear so expensive that it can't

compete with any source of power. And finally on that

note, I had a conversation with -- (inaudible) -- a former

nuclear inspector with the State of Maine and I asked him

why there was so much economic information in the Maine

Yankee projections, you know, this is the plant that

closed down 12 years earlier because they could not pay

their bills, and he said, well, nuclear plants that are

well run and financially stable are safer plants, so, you

know, my concern here is that there's a lot of evidence

that no nuclear plant can be built cheaply today and we

are setting up for a failure if we hook up to New

Brunswick nuclear. Thanks very much.

MR. BUCKLEY: John Merrill is next. After John

Merrill is Joe Garcia.

MR. MERRILL: I was in the other room.

MR. BUCKLEY: That's okay.

MR. MERRILL: My name is John Merrill. I'm from

the Town of Etna, Maine, and I'm with the Penobscot

Conservation Association out of Brewer and we have got

notice of the northern line, not the southern line, we

have over 1400 acres that we are keeping forever wild as

far as a game preserve and your northern power line is

going right straight through the middle of it. This is

the largest wild body of kept forever wild in Central

Maine and it's going to be destroyed. Another problem we

are having with this is that -- trying to find out

information about this. We got a letter, no phone number.

We got a name. I called Central Maine Power. They gave

me the run-around. I was three weeks trying to find a

name. I finally got one name. I left a message. Each

day, I called two or three times and left a message on her

voice mail. Never got back. Finally, I called and I

threatened to file complaint with the Maine Utility

Company. 20 minutes later, I got a phone call. She sent

me maps, how it was going to come through, which does not

set a good example if they are going to try to keep this

under the table, but we are now upset because we have put

a lot of effort and a lot of money into this, the

association, to try to keep part of Maine from being

developed and destroyed. And as I say, we have over

1400 acres which is going to be ruined. And this is the

largest body of land in Central Maine that is going to be

kept forever wild. And I think that these power lines

things are a dinosaur, they are going to be obsolete in

time, so I just -- I would like to have more cooperation

where we could get more information. I'm hoping there is

going to be other hearings probably up in the Bangor area.

MR. BUCKLEY: The commission will have other

public witness hearings in the next calendar year.

MR. MERRILL: Do you have to go underground to

find out when there is a meeting?

MR. BUCKLEY: We give newspaper notice and try

to get articles generated. They have not decided where

they are going to be, but I imagine there will be one more

in the central northern part and one in the southern part

of the state.

MR. MERRILL: Okay. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Garcia is next and then Brad

Blake.

MR. GARCIA: My name is Joe Garcia. I'm a

selectmen in the Town of Etna and we just got maps through

John which shows we are going to get hit -- a little part

of our town is going to get hit with it, but the biggest

concern I have had from some of the people who called me

in town is they are scared. They are scared because they

are hearing they are going to be putting these massive

power lines through, they are not exactly sure where, and

they are also scared about the cost. We live in an

economically depressed area, we are poor, it's a poor

town, and the electric bill is a hard enough bill to

fathom, and I've been looking at the numbers and I see

that they have allocated 1-1/2 billion for the southern

part. God knows how much for the northern part up.

That's a 2-1/2 billion dollar monkey, the way I see it,

that they are going to be put -- that CMP is going to be

taking on. And given their history and given the way the

economy is and has been going, I have a big concern that

that monkey is not going to get dumped on the backs of the

people who are in this state, particularly since they are

not really going to benefit. As other people have said,

most of the electricity is going out of state. What does

it do for the people in my town? It doesn't do anything

quite frankly. They say it will bring jobs. Fine. For

six months, you build it. They are gone. It brings all

sorts of problems, all sorts of issues. I would like the

Public Utilities Commission to really take a hard, hard

look at this proposal, see what kind of scar they are

going to run from the north of Maine to the south of Maine

and then think about it and see if they can sleep with

their conscious and what it's going to do to that

beautiful land up there. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Brad Blake and then JoAnne Masar.

MR. BLAKE: Good evening. My name is Brad

Blake. I live in Cape Elizabeth, but I have a cottage on

Caribou Pond in Lincoln, Maine. And my family has a

cottage on Silver Lake in Lee, Maine. Well, you wonder

why am I here. It's one of those exercises of connect the

dots, folks. The power line expansion is not needed and

it's not needed for two reasons. If we pulled ourselves

out of ISO New England, we are more than self-sufficient

in our wonderful State of Maine for generations to come

with existing power. The reason why I'm here is I'm the

spokesman for the Friends of Lincoln Lakes, an

organization of citizens, an advocacy group that was

formed because First Wind doing business as Evergreen

Three, LLC, is about to get permitting from the Town of

Lincoln and probably the DEP early next year to go ahead

with 40 industrial wind turbines on the ridges above 15

lakes in Lincoln, Lee and Berlington and Winn. Now

Industrial Wind is not your small size personal power

plants that people like to have and we encourage. They

are also not the medium size power plants that can take

something like a municipal sewage treatment plant off the

grid. They are huge. And it has become the policy of the

Baldacci Administration for some asinine reason to foster

the development of dozens of these throughout Northern and

Eastern Maine and in Western Maine as well. Mars Hill has

been done. Stetson Mountain is about to come on-line.

Lincoln is going to be next. Chibby Mountain on the

boundary of Quebec is -- has started. Reddington has

started. Fort Kent is -- is being looked at by Horizon

Wind from Texas of all places. Everywhere that there is a

north south access ridge in this State of Maine is going

to have a met tower put up on it. And the reason for that

is not because of the piddling amount of intermittent

power that will surge into the grid to be sent to ISO New

England and have to take it and that's the reason why you

have a power line expansion, the reason why these turbines

are being built is because it is a tax subsidy plantation.

Because if you take away the tax subsidies for developing

industrial wind, the industry goes away. It doesn't

sustain itself. And to think that we want to take on a

billion-and-a-half dollars of power line expansion and

upgrades to enable this raid on the taxpayers' dollars is

asinine. So I hope that you will think that there are

many dots to connect including ending industrial wind

power industry rape of Rural Maine. Thank you very much.

MR. BUCKLEY: After JoAnne is Michael Duston.

MS. MASAR: I have a letter from somebody that

couldn't come tonight and I have some pictures for you

that I brought.

MR. BUCKLEY: All right. Thank you.

MS. MASAR: Thank you for having this meeting

and I'm glad to hear that you are going to have another

one in the southern part -- more southern part of the

state. I am speaking at this hearing to voice my concerns

about CMP's project relative to its necessity, scope and

the effect it will have on my property values and health.

As you already know, I live in a condominium development

in South Berwick which is currently being negatively

affected by the first phase of this project. This is

going to devastate the landscape of our property

needlessly, as I have said many times. The market value

of our property has already seen a 17 percent decrease in

the last 60 days. There is nobody protecting the property

owners against CMP. The commission has made rulings in

favor of CMP and ordered that they work with property

owners. However, the commission does not follow up and

makes sure this is actually accomplished. Complaints seem

to fall on deaf ears. I want to know why and I want to

know what will be done to rectify this. I'm greatly

concerned about the health effects of this project. These

power lines will come within feet of some homeowners' back

doors. I have attached pictures of my development so that

we will hopefully be more than just an aerial view. We

are real people. EMF is real too. I don't need an expert

paid for by CMP to tell me it isn't so. CMP has already

told us they again intend to remove all the trees in the

remainder of the easement even though it is not necessary.

It is the only buffer we have between the power lines and

our homes. What will the commission do to stop this from

happening? If you insist on allowing this project to go

forward, you should order these lines to go underground.

If CMP can spend millions of dollars to hire attorneys and

experts and pay UPS fees for thousands of documents to

interveners, not to mention the regular wages, perhaps

overtime they are paying to their own employees to meet

with abutters and attend these public meetings that

they're so opposed to having, then they can certainly

spend the money on these lines to be put underground where

they are safer. As I suggested once before, I would like

to see all of the commission and Mr. Buckley to actually

visit our property and see for yourselves what impact you

are having on the public in your decision making. This is

not simply about business. It's about our health, our

safety, our property values, and the quality of our life.

You impact it all. Lastly -- well, you already answered

that question about the meeting. And I thank you. That's

all.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. After Michael Duston

is Alan Carle.

MR. HUSTON: Good evening. Actually, it's

Michael Huston. I have the worst handwriting, I

apologize. My name is Michael Huston. I live in Lisbon

Falls. I own no property that is near this. I have no

gripe with the power line from a personal point of view

because of that. I'm also the director of economic

development and planning for a community in Southern

Maine, but I don't want to tell you where it is because

I'm not here on their behalf. I have worked in the past

for a corporation in Massachusetts that developed small

scale hydro power. I worked for a corporation in the

other Portland on the left coast that did a lot of work

with power companies in conservation. And I offer you

this not because I'm the smartest guy in the room. In

fact, I am not anywhere close to the smartest person in

the room, but I have some understanding of electricity and

how it gets power and how it gets generated and how it

gets moved around. During the ice storm, I was the city

manager in Hallowell, so I have a lot of experience with

dealing with Central Maine Power coming in and correcting

power and getting us back up. And I have a lot of respect

for the work they put in, but I submit to you that as a

company, they -- and they are not alone in this -- are not

forward thinking folks. They don't need this. If they

would look -- and it's been discussed before, this is

certainly not original -- it's some sort of distributed

power and -- if the Public Utilities Commission would say

that's what we want you to do. If they have the ability

to raise a billion-and-a-half dollars, and I have to say

I'm not sure they have the ability to raise a

billion-and-a-half, but let's give them that and say that

they can, what if they put half a billion of that or maybe

half or 750 million of it, 750 million, half of what they

raise into something like solar cells or fuel cells or

some better batteries, and instead of taking those out

into the country where there are a lot of people who are

getting off the grid -- I mean we have an opportunity.

This is Lewiston, Maine. It's a fairly dense area. There

are a lot of apartment buildings. There are a lot of

single family homes. In Lisbon Falls where I live, there

are 260 homes that are fairly easy. I mean if all of that

money was put into that, I mean you get the cost of these

things down, you could put them in. And I don't care

if -- if the generating company continues to own those

generating panels instead of my owning them. Think back

to the phone system. When I was young, probably when --

you don't remember, sir, but when I was young, the phone

company owned the phones. We paid rent to them. No one

bought a phone. No one had that on their own. It was a

fairly good business model. Probably doesn't work for the

phone company now because everything is portable, but, you

know, electricity for the most part isn't portable, it's

going to remain. I want to be part of a grid. I know

there are a lot of people who don't want to be, but I want

to be part of the grid. I want to know somebody is going

to come and fix the problem when it goes out at my house.

I want to know it's going to be there, so I don't really

care if the company owns it, but the company doesn't have

any incentive to build it. The company doesn't have any

incentive to try to wean me from the grid because they can

do this, because they can come in and say we are going to

do this. I think that we ought to be forcing them to look

at some of these alternatives. If you replace -- if you

can take 250 to 750 homes out of the system, then that

electricity is not going to have to go in. Then you have

got room for it. Then you can put in a new wind system or

maybe you can do without. The company I worked for in

Portland, Oregon, specialized solely in large grocery

stores. That was their niche. And in the two years they

operated before the tax credits went away, they were able

to cut electrical use in those stores in Portland by

almost 15 percent. Now those were, you know, times before

we had a lot of the technology that we have got now. That

was in 1984, so we have got a whole generation that's

happened since then. These things are all possible. And

I think before we allow a company to say we need to build

more power lines like this, we need to increase this so we

can have more base power units, we ought to be requiring

them to tell us why they can't take that money and spend

it on alternatives that they can own that they can make a

profit on and that are going to wean us away from this

sort of massive large scale inefficient use of the

resources that we have. Thank you very much.

MR. BUCKLEY: Alan Carle and then Hillary

Lister.

MR. CARLE: Good evening. My name is Alan Carl.

I live in Yarmouth. I'm here tonight with a few members

of our community action group, the Yarmouth interveners.

I have a couple of quick comments to make that are

concerns of ours. From previous testimony, it has become

clear that CMP has used a new standard of reliability

unprecedented in Maine in order to design the proposed

infrastructure additions and upgrades. We caution the

commission that the standards promoted in this case by CMP

if adopted in Maine and New England will greatly raise

consumer costs. The gold plate of this project must be

avoided. My second point is -- second comment is there

are serious concerns -- there are serious questions about

what the rush is to get this done. Why is the CMP system

in such a shambles all of the sudden? The whole process

should take -- the whole process should move a bit slower

to make sure that it is needed and that it minimizes

impacts on our communities. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Hillary Lister.

MS. LISTER: Hi there. I spoke at the hearing

in Waterville, but I've found out a lot more since then,

so I just wanted to speak again. So the first thing is I

agree with the last person who spoke, this process really

needs to be slowed down. At the Waterville hearing, there

was only a four-day notice in the local newspaper. This

is affecting the whole state. There really needs to be

more public notice for this to be any sort of fair

process. Also, the fact that there has already been

intervener cross-examinations, expert witnesses, and it

sounds like there is intervener processes still open, you

have said, so I'm just wondering how that is going to work

if people now want to file as interveners, if they can

present their own expert testimony, if there will continue

to be technical hearings, and if not, I would really

encourage that. Let's see, I'm also concerned that part

of this project is already going, it sounds like, from

speaking with people in South Berwick, the corridor has

already been cut. I'm really concerned that these

dockets -- it's being separated into different dockets,

Northern Maine and Southern Maine, even though it's

clearly part of the same project, and I'm concerned if the

Central and Southern Maine section gets it approved, what

if the Northern Maine section turns out to be something

that is decided isn't right. I think these really need to

go together so people can be fully informed of what's

going on. One thing -- a person earlier spoke about

nuclear. Since I've been researching this, I have come

across -- (inaudible) -- in New Brunswick, they want to

put a second nuclear reactor on-line. The only way they

can get financing is if they can sell that power to the

Southern New England market, so this looks like this is

key to that. I think between that and the amount of

so-called biomass boilers, incinerators that already exist

on this line and that will be able to sell power to here,

all this talk about wind power for things that don't even

exist, I think incinerator industry, waste industry and

nuclear power industry are already set to go, so -- and

there is only a limited amount of renewable energy credits

available for these things. And burning construction

demolition debris waste and in some cases nuclear power

being considered renewable carbon neutral, I think the

thing a lot of people brought up of looking at distributed

power localized. And I have read CMP's report and the

non-transmission alternatives report that says the

solution is biomass. I would argue that's not at all the

solution. It's dangerous. People -- where I live in

Athens, people got sick from so-called biomass. People in

Old Town have gotten sick from so-called biomass. It's

including lead painted wood, arsenic treated wood, PVC

plastics, you've got toxic ash, toxic emissions. This is

not a safe thing. I think we can look at safe distributed

generation. We can look at -- if we have a

billion-and-a-half dollars or 2-1/2 billion dollars to

spend, why not give it to the local communities and they

can work together and come up with something that is going

to benefit the people of Maine and not just Iberdrola and

CMP and some power generating plants that don't live here

and are not affected by the impacts. And I also -- I know

the PUC was supposed to look at the option of an

independent transmission company where Maine power is

generated in Maine for Maine, much more distributed. I

have not seen too much about that other than it looked

like it was just given a cursory overview and then said

that it wasn't feasible. I think it is feasible and I

think until that option has been really explored and until

people really get a chance to get informed about what this

is and work with their local communities, people of Maine

need to have the ability to propose an alternative because

this is a bad plan and I hope you give us the chance. I

understand you are not elected, so you are accountable to

the governor, not to the -- but you are also supposedly

public servants accountable to the public and I hope you

take that seriously. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Next is David and Mary Fournier.

MR. FOURNIER: Hello. Hello my name is David

Fournier. I'm from Eliot, Maine, 16 High Meadow Farm

Road, and I'm an intervener for the MPRP CPCN project.

Maine Power Reliability Program. Well, there's been a lot

of testimony tonight and a lot of people here don't think

it's really about Maine or power reliability. Mr. Buckley

mentioned that system thermal overload, I believe it was,

was the reason that these monuments to electricity are

being built. I don't know. Do we really want to deliver

these to our children for generations to come to be

maintained like the infrastructures that we have that are

declining like the bridges and everything else that we

have messed up? So I know that, you know, we probably do

need to upgrade a few power lines. I'm not against

upgrading power lines, but it just seems to be a little

bit too much. The local generating electricity sounds

like it's a much better idea as far as not putting all of

our eggs in one basket, you know, you lose one power line,

there goes all of New England. The fact that one of the

benefits would be that transmitting power to the rest of

the New England grid is just an unexpected bonus is -- I

don't think that's really what it was meant to be, so I'm

against the Maine Power Reliability Program.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you.

MS. FOURNIER: Hi. My name is Mary Fournier. I

live in Eliot, Maine, same address as my husband who just

spoke. And as I look at all of you -- and I think I have

gotten to know at least how two of the three commissioners

think fairly well over the last year having been very

involved as the lead complainant on a 10-person complaint

regarding the 115,000 volt reconstruction in North

Berwick, South Berwick and Eliot, Maine, which is not just

underway, which a lot of people will be facing the same

prospect, having to -- gotten to know Jim Buckley, and I

think I am quite familiar with how Jim, you know,

approaches things and how he thinks, still have not gotten

to know much about Jack Cashman yet except for we are from

the same area originally, I believe. My first residence

was in Brewer, Maine, but when I came here tonight to talk

about an hour-and-a-half away was this. I don't think

that people realize the severity and the seriousness of

what the four of you -- the four of you right in front of

me are about to decide within the next year, less than a

year. We have a company which provides a necessity to us

through its transmission and distribution lines, Central

Maine Power Company. I learned a lot tonight by listening

to other participants in this public witness hearing about

the quality of the background of Central Maine Power

Company and it leaves much to be desired. I have gotten

to know many of these people who are involved in the

day-to-day business of Central Maine Power Company

throughout the last year and I must say I'm very

disappointed in the quality of what's happening right now

with us. Section 197 construction began approximately two

weeks ago. On five occasions, I have been out to monitor

the progress of the work. I have photographed before

pictures. I'm in the process of photographing after

pictures. I must describe to you clearly -- and I'm not

misrepresenting this and I'm not exaggerating -- it is an

absolute mess down there. I don't see one rule of the DEP

being followed. The company who is hired to clear the

trees is cutting the trees. There are stumps that are

this high, shorter, a little higher. There are trees that

are not marked well. They are not clear on what trees

they are supposed to cut and what trees they are not

supposed to cut in wetlands, I mean where there is

standing water. I do see construction mats. I also see

many strewn about pine tree limbs that they don't want.

The trees they take, they chip into a large tractor

trailer truck eventually and sell to generate power.

These are very hard working individuals. I believe they

have been working overtime. I'm quite sure they have

worked Saturdays and very -- one person said to me when I

first went out to see the site near Craig Hill Substation,

he said, gee, I feel really badly about these people, we

are starting up our machinery, our really loud machinery

at 7:00 A.M. After my husband got home from work that

day, I said, you have got to see what they are doing. And

when we got there, it was already dark and they weren't

close to done. They made such progress in the first few

days, I was absolutely amazed. Currently, there are

single poles now constructed. There is one area where

there is a very large built up section where they took

apart somebody's old beautiful rock wall and put it in the

soil dug up from the wetlands to make a strong base around

the single pole. There is hay on top of that. There

are -- in the DEP order, there are supposed to be yellow

plastic caution tape areas where they are protecting

endangered wildlife plants. We have seen some of them

just torn off and there is nothing there. There is mud.

I mean there are enough pine limbs strewn in wetlands. We

have wildlife habitats that are being demolished and they

have only done I would say approximately a mile, if that,

of construction at this point. Somebody called me to tell

me they had begun construction and I didn't take too long

to get up there. And he was absolutely devastated. His

property is a designated view-shed in the State of Maine.

It's called Cabbage Hill. It was absolutely beautiful.

You would drive along Route 4 and it was very beautiful.

It was something that would make you feel very comforted

that you live in Maine. It's one of our precious views.

It is gone now. The trees are just wiped right out for

the most part. There are a few stragglers here and there.

My husband and I have been trying to work with CMP since

the end of May to try to get them to move our --

(inaudible.) Ironically, in CMP's answer to the 10-person

complaint, filed on December 14th of last year, in tab R,

there is an aerial photograph of our home that is

engineered by TRC, they are a consulting engineering

company, I was told, where they show a red dot and it is

pole 101, exactly where we want it. They will not do that

for us even though the commission has ordered them on

August 22nd of 2008 to meet with the abutters who have

requested it on this Section 197 where it is a rebuilt

30-foot offset 115,000-volt line to wherever they could do

this to accommodate their preferences. We have, my

husband and I, discussed quite seriously in an answer I

received from the project -- the head project engineer

from CMP, after I did a filing, he has estimated -- and I

learned later it's not really based on any real fact --

that it may cost as much as 20,000 to put that pole there.

My husband and I have offered to CMP employees, including

their senior counsel, that we will pay the difference. No

response. Our town code enforcement officer recently sent

a letter to Central Maine Power outlining all the specific

code ordinances they expect them to follow, to abide by.

I have heard no response from CMP. We have specific codes

which require tree buffering, protection -- preservation

of the landscape, water quality, soil erosion. Our

property has wetland on it. We have a hill that if

they -- due to these other areas where they obviously

don't care and have not communicated to these inexpensive

tree clearing people, because they are getting the trees

at a profit, that they are not supposed to be destroying

our wetlands. EMF issues concern me also. Today, I

called California and I spoke with -- in the Department of

Education in California because of having listened to Bill

Bailey's expert testimony, which is of course going to be

biased because he is paid for and hired by CMP, but we are

all footing the bill, I spoke with two gentlemen in the

school facilities planning division regarding testimony

that was part of, you know, abutters asking questions of

Bill Bailey regarding California. And they have setback

requirements that's under Title 5, that's state Title 5

regulation -- law regulations, I spoke to two very highly

qualified individuals about the specifics. Where you have

a school plant on a piece of property and you have a power

company wanting to put anything between 220 and 230 kV up,

there's a 50-foot setback requirement from the boundary

easement of the corridor to the boundary line of the

school property. And they do not -- if anything is over

200 kV, they cannot deviate from this. Sometimes because

of limitations, there are power company requests to place

a line that is under 220-volt, under 200,000 volts, and

there's a very -- process they are required to do a

specific study to report to -- there is like an

environmental law where they have to file environmental

plans and it is very rigorous and they do not look at it

lightly. We have children who live very close to these

corridors, many children. Central Maine Power Company has

downsized greatly and they put a spin as far as EMF.

Everything I listen to, I must honestly say there was a

spin put on it by Bill Bailey. That's what he was hired

to do. We have children, we have elderly people. My

father has a pacemaker. (Inaudible.) I said, well, dad,

you think about it, but he does have a pacemaker. My

mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She's 85

years old. She's doing pretty well right now, she's very

independent, but our home has a mother-in-law apartment in

it with its own kitchen and bathroom, very comfortable

quarters, in case one of my parents wants to live with us

and I don't know if they would be able to because of the

health effects of the EMF. I had the privilege to live in

England for two-and-a-half years while my husband was

service in United States -- (inaudible.) I will tell you,

I listened to Mr. Bailey's answer regarding the English

not allowing these high power voltage lines next to

people's home and we thought maybe that wasn't so much

health or whatever to that effect, but it may have to do

with property rights. Well, we in the United States

certainly should have property rights, but I will tell you

right now from having lived in England, they would never

allow this. It would be -- it would have to do -- the

British would have made these decisions based on health

issues certainly. They have very unbiased studies because

they're not making a lot of money off of them. They have

the national health care system. And people would be

outraged. You cannot build this in somebody's

neighborhood. In New Hampshire where we live very close

to --

MR. BUCKLEY: Mary, you should wrap up.

MS. FOURNIER: (Inaudible.) They don't put them

in people's back yards. We have -- again, you know, I

would encourage people to go down to South Berwick and

look at what's being done now because they will see that

three times over if CMP is approved, the devastation to

the land, and CMP does not correct it, they are not

compliant with the PUC's orders and they do not care.

They have told me they are not intending to put any tree

buffers up. They have already, already disobeyed your

orders. And you are a very important -- probably the most

important state agency, you really are. You have a great

service to perform and you all have I think a great deal

of intelligence and wisdom, but this is the most

long-reaching decision you will ever make and we have

people who -- you don't want to know 10 years down the

road, I'm sure, any one of you, I don't think you are

these types of people where you will know that these

effects that you decided, if you decide this way, that you

have caused deaths and serious illnesses. And that I

think there will be -- as the construction occurs, if it

does, once the people see what's being done to their

property, there will be the biggest uprising I believe

amongst Mainers and there will be many laws changed and

there will be heads to roll basically because this is

very, very serious. And I beg of you, I beg of you, I

think that your orders are very serious, and I appreciate

what you did in the orders in the last case, and I do

expect that there will be some enforcement of those

orders, and I think that when you see these people who

come -- and I'm almost done, Jim, thank you -- many people

intervened and I think it is -- the docket itself is

screwed up. A lot of filings are from rate cases, all

kinds of things that have nothing to do with MPRP, but the

filings are very voluminous and it's complicated. And I

think a lot of interveners care just as much as they did

when they filed, but I think they're overwhelmed, do not

have the time -- (inaudible) -- and this sort of thing,

but I think there is still definitely the interest. And I

thank you for having this tonight. I appreciate you all,

I want you to know that, and I hope to God -- and I mean

this as sincerely as anybody can -- that you make very

careful wise decisions on our behalves. Thank you very

much.

MR. BUCKLEY: Next name is James Tierney, I

believe.

MR. TIERNEY: Thank you. I wasn't going to

testify tonight, but I decided to because what I have to

say has not been said by anybody else, so let me just

suggest that what we are talking about is kind of a

distraction and it feels to me like we are putting the

cart before the horse. And let me just take a minute or

two. I know the hour is late. You have heard a lot of

different things. I will try not to repeat anything, but

it seems to me that this is the cart, you know, this

distribution, how do we get the power to the people who

need it. That's important. But the horse lies offshore

here. All the power that we will ever need, if I'm not

mistaken, can be generated with the wind that exists

offshore. And if we generated it within three or three

nautical miles from shore, then we, the people of Maine,

already own the fuel that it would take to generate all

the electricity we will ever need. So, you know, I --

when I say it's a distraction, I think it's important that

we look here and realize that if we put generators within

three miles of shore, we already own all the fuel to

generate all the electricity in a clean way without

damaging the environment. So then, you know, if we all

decided that that was a good idea, and I can't imagine why

we wouldn't think it's a good idea, then we could decide,

well, what kind of a cart do we want to get the

electricity to where the people in Maine want it. Maybe

that's the best one, I don't know, but I do know we are

crazy if we don't take advantage of the free fuel off the

coast to generate the electricity that we need and then

figure out what kind of a cart we need to get it where we

would like it to be. I do appreciate your coming to

Lewiston/Auburn. I live in Auburn. Not too many people

here tonight from Auburn, but I appreciate your coming to

Lewiston/Auburn. We are sort of off the beaten track, but

I think we have a lot of bright people here and have

something to say and I appreciate your listening.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. I realize now the last

name on the list has been X'd out, so that's all the names

on the list that I have. Is there anyone else here who

didn't have a chance to sign up who wants to?

MR. JONES: My name is Brad Jones and I have a

farm in South Berwick. And for many months now, I've been

talking with representatives from CMP concerning the tree

line that Mary Fournier was talking about. I have about

300 acres which I'm going to put into conservation, all of

it. And I talked with CMP representatives many times. I

was assured, quote, that only capable species would be

cut, all others would be left. I was assured that over

and over and over again. I had a meeting with the project

engineer just before -- couple weeks before cutting

started and an arborist so-called from CMP came down and

he said, no, it was all going to be cut. And still, after

the arborist left, I was assured that only capable species

would be cut. I wrote a letter to the PUC and I asked for

help on it and I was told, well, ordinarily -- I believe

you told me, Jim, you ordinarily don't get involved after

a ruling is passed down and that shook me. I said, well,

to myself, you mean we pass a law and then we don't

enforce it, so I was kind of concerned. And I

understand -- I'm not saying you weren't doing your job, I

understand this is very difficult. Anyway, I was promised

that when the cutting started, I would be notified in

advance. I was told that they were committed to telling

me before the cutting was started, I would be told in

advance, because I'm affected for 1500 lineal feet along

my property. And this new project is going to affect

another half a mile on my property too, but that's beside

the point, I will have to face that too. Anyway, it was

several days into the cutting when I found out the project

had started and I called the project engineer and I said,

how come you did not keep your word, how come you have not

kept your word right along, how come you did not tell me

when you were going to start the cutting. Oh, he said,

they started the project, I didn't know that. I said,

sure you didn't know that, sure, sure. Then he said,

well, I haven't got complete control over that, real

nasty-like, and I said, oh, boy. So anyway, I proceeded

to see all this capable species cut and everything else

left. Well, I can assure you that nothing is left right

to the ground. It's ground into the ground. There is

dirt left. Low bush juniper, low bush blueberry,

everything is gone. It is a mess, an absolute total mess

into the wetlands. If anybody would like to see it, it's

on the Old Knights Pond Road, corner of Harvey Road and

Route 4, on the South Berwick, North Berwick line. And I

assure you that in my opinion, CMP representatives are not

to be trusted at all. In my opinion, they are not to be

believed at all. I am very, very unhappy and very

disappointed. I also think it's not very smart of them to

do this to landowners, because now, I have 700 more feet

that is going to be affected by this new line. I'm not in

a very good mood to deal with them. Maybe I will be

forced to by eminent domain. I don't know. I just don't

know, but I -- they have a terrible track record with me.

I tried to work with them in good faith. They told me

they would work with me in good faith. They were told by

the PUC to work with me and other landowners in good

faith. I'm not the only landowner along the 197 line that

has been devastated by this. There is another couple on

Dennett Road not far from me and the fellow said I feel

bad enough, but my wife is totally devastated. They told

us they would not do this, they told us they would not do

this to us, and he said, I just don't understand. I said,

well, I don't understand either because it's not very good

corporate policy to treat people this way. Thank you.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you.

MS. GABEY: Good evening. Thank you for the

opportunity to speak even though I didn't have a chance to

sign up. I'm Ruth Gabey. I live in West Gardiner. And

I'm a member of the Maine Green Independent Party and on

the issues committee and I will probably bring this up to

the committee at some time in the very near future. I've

been an environmentalist for more than 40 years. I have

attended many, many, many of these type hearings and we

get -- we get more -- we go more backwards every year. We

are seven -- nine years into the 21st century and I would

think that all of the sins of the 20th century would be

behind us, but the mentality is still in the 20th century.

We are still doing the things that we did in the 20th

century that caused global warning, air pollution, ocean

pollution, extinction of species, and the whole

nine yards. I just can't understand the mentality that

prevails that keeps us into the 20th century. With all

the talk of global warning and acid rain from generation

of electricity, Mercury coming down from the coal mine

plants, polluting our fish, making tune fish inedible for

the most part, all these things, and the list goes on and

on and on, and yet, we have these people with the 20th

century mentality ruling our laws. And at age 77, I'm

damn sick and tired of it. And I think it's time if you

people can't do the right thing, then like Harry Truman

said, if you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, get out,

resign your position and tell the government and CMP that

you are not going to abide by their horrible rules of

degradation of this state and the people in it. Thank

you.

MS. FOURNIER: I never got sworn in. Can you

swear us in after the testimony that it was all truthful?

MR. BUCKLEY: I could. Let's see if there is

anybody else who wants to speak tonight.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I didn't -- (inaudible.)

MR. BUCKLEY: You checked off that you didn't

want to be.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oh, did I?

MR. BUCKLEY: I can swear you in and then ask

you all if you adopt the statements you gave earlier as

sworn testimony. Each raise your right hand. You too.

Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you will give in

this proceeding will be wholly truthful?

(Audience Members Sworn In.)

MR. BUCKLEY: I'm going to ask -- I'm going to

ask and each one of you should answer yes or no. You were

just sworn now and do you adopt the statement you gave

earlier as -- as if given under oath this evening?

MR. LINNELL: Yes, I do. Bill Linnell.

MS. FOURNIER: Mary Fournier.

MR. BUCKLEY: And you said yes?

MS. FOURNIER: Yes, I do.

MR. FOURNIER: Yes, I do. David Fournier.

MR. TIERNEY: Yes, I do too. Jim Tierney.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you. Well, there's no one

else on the list and no other persons. Thank you all for

coming and we are adjourned. Just for those who -- in

case you are curious, CMP asked this case to be decided by

next June, early June, and the next set of events to

happen is both the commission staff and the interveners

will have a chance to file their own experts or their own

opinion testimony and that will happen probably sometime

in the beginning of the new year and then there is another

round of technical conferences and things like that

leading to ultimately hearings sometime in probably the

early spring before the commission decides in next May or

June. Okay. Thank you all for coming.

(Time Noted: 8:47 P.M.)

C E R T I F I C A T E

I, Lisa S. Bishop, a Notary Public in and for the

State of Maine, hereby certify that the proceedings were

had in the cause styled in the caption hereto; that I was

authorized to and did attend said hearing and report the

proceedings had therein fully and accurately, and that the

foregoing typewritten pages constitute a transcript of my

shorthand report of the proceedings taken at said time.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand

this _____ day of ________, 2008.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Lisa S. Bishop, RPR

My Commission Expires:

January 27, 2009