PRE-FILED DIRECT TESTIMONY OF ROBERT KIMBER ON BEHALF OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BOUNDARY MOUNTAINS BEFORE THE MAINE LAND USE REGULATION COMMISION

In the matter of the Rezoning Application ZP 709 TransCanada Maine Wind Development, Inc. and Plum Creek Maine Timberlands, LLC.

For a 132 MW Wind Energy Plant in Skinner Township and Kibby Township, Franklin County, Maine

Introduction

My name is Robert Kimber. I live at 147 Intervale Road, Temple, Maine 04984. Mailing address: PO Box 525, Temple, Maine 04984. I am a semi-retired translator and freelance writer with a special interest in outdoor and environmental subjects. I say semi-retired because writers do not retire for good until they keel over. I have summarized those parts of my work and experience relevant to this proceeding in a résumé attached to this testimony as Exhibit RK-1.

I will focus my remarks on “remoteness and the relative absence of development” and their bearing on scenic values and recreational opportunities, especially on backcountry recreation. These topics are closely related and cannot be treated in complete isolation from each other. Passages I consider most relevant to these topics from the applicable statutes, rules, and standards are listed and quoted in the footnote below.1

1 For the Commission to approve rezoning of a P-MA subdistrict to a D-PD subdistrict, it must ensure that the proposal “(1) Conforms with the objectives and policies of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and 12 M.R.S.A., 206-A; (2) Incorporates, where the land proposed for inclusion in the D-PD subdistrict is in a protection subdistrict, a substantially equivalent level of environmental and resource protection as was afforded under such protected subdistrict; (3) Utilizes the best reasonably available site for the proposed use.” (Chapter 10, Section 10.21.G.8.b(1), (2), and (3). The pertinent sections of M.R.S.A., 206-A, both reinforce and add to these requirements: The Commission may not approve an application unless: “The proposed land use district satisfies a demonstrated need in the community or area and has no undue adverse impact on existing uses or resources…” (Title 12, 685-A, 8-A(B). “Adequate provision has been made for fitting the proposal harmoniously into the existing natural environment in order to assure there will be no undue adverse effect on existing uses, scenic character and natural and historic resources in the area likely to be affected by the proposal.” (Title 12, 685-B, 4-C) The purpose of the Mountain Area Protection Subdistrict (P-MA) as defined in 10.23.G (P-MA), paragraph 1, is “to preserve the natural equilibrium of vegetation, geology, slope, soil and climate in order to reduce danger to public health and safety posed by unstable mountain areas, to protect water quality, and to preserve mountain areas for their scenic values and recreational opportunities.” Title 12, 685-A(1)(A) provides a general definition of protection districts as “areas where development would jeopardize significant natural, recreational and historic resources, including, but not limited to, flood plains, precipitous slopes, wildlife habitat and other areas critical to the ecology of the region or State.” 2 The construction of the wind-power plant that would follow on rezoning Kibby Mountain and the Kibby range would sacrifice an important region, which, if left undeveloped, will continue to provide the people of Maine with far greater benefits than forty-four wind-power turbines can. But of greater import here than my personal opinion is whether the proposed project meets the criteria for approval spelled out in Maine statutes, in LURC’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP), and in its Chapter 10 Land Use Districts and Standards (Ch. 10). I am convinced that it does not. But before I turn to specific points in the petitioner’s application, I’d like to make two general observations.

1. My first observation concerns the big picture within which TransCanada’s application has to be assessed, a picture of increasingly diversified ownerships and of increasing competition over increasingly rare resources in LURC’s jurisdiction. No one is more aware of that big picture than the members of this Commission, who have to deal in this one year with three major wind-power proposals and, at Moosehead Lake, with the most massive development proposal Maine has seen to date. As the CLUP notes (p. 47), “Many of the [LURC] jurisdiction’s values are closely linked to forest resources, including large-scale commercial forestry, ecological diversity, and recreation in a remote setting ….Fragmentation of ownership and associated changes in use and management threaten to undermine the integrity of the forest resource in a way that compromises these values.” In short, a wind-power project in the location and of the scale proposed by TransCanada is alien to the principal values of the jurisdiction and destructive of them.

2. Secondly, if there is any one concept implicit throughout the CLUP and underlying its goals and policies, that concept is the integrity of the jurisdiction—its wholeness, its soundness as a natural system. Forestry, ecological diversity, and recreation in a remote setting all depend on keeping the jurisdiction intact and on putting the strictest of limits on uses and management incompatible with those traditional uses and principal values. As the CLUP notes (pp. 46-47), now that the de facto protections of few roads in the jurisdiction and of large ownerships devoted primarily to forest management and outdoor recreation are no longer in place—controls that prevailed from late in the nineteenth century and through much of the twentieth—it now falls increasingly to the Land Use Regulation Commission to protect the North Woods’ principal values and traditional uses and to see that “the natural world remains the dominant presence” in the jurisdiction. (CLUP, p. 16)

“Natural area…forestry…recreation”—these terms keep recurring in the CLUP in various permutations, leaving no doubt in the reader’s mind that the Commission’s broad mandate does not include encouraging residential sprawl or industrial development. Noteworthy, three of the jurisdiction’s four principal values (p. 114) focus on primitive outdoor recreation or the intrinsic value of natural resources:

“Diverse and abundant recreational opportunities, particularly for primitive pursuits. (italics added)

3 “Diverse, abundant and unique high-value natural resources and features, including lakes, rivers and other water resources, fish and wildlife resources, ecological values, scenic and cultural resources, coastal islands, and mountain areas and other geologic resources.

“Natural character values, which include the uniqueness of a vast forested area that is largely undeveloped and remote from population centers.” (italics added)

Further, “Remoteness and the relative absence of development are perhaps the most distinctive of the jurisdiction’s principal values, due mainly to their increasing rarity in the Eastern United States. (italics added)… The value of natural resources is generally enhanced when they are part of a large, undisturbed area, especially one that encompasses entire watersheds or ecosystems” (CLUP, p. 114).

“Remote, undeveloped qualities are also particularly sensitive to permanent changes in the landscape resulting from development. The remote character of a pristine pond, for instance, may be lost long before development threatens water quality or wildlife habitat. These values may be difficult to quantify but they are integral to the jurisdiction’s identity and to its overall character” (CLUP, p. 115).

Among Maine’s “exceptional recreational opportunities” the CLUP enumerates are “approximately 100 mountain peaks over 3,000 feet high,” adding: “As exceptional as these resources are, it is the area’s remoteness and lack of development that sets it apart…For many users, these remote, undeveloped qualities not only enhance, but essentially define, their recreational experience, distinguishing it from excursions in more populous areas. As other recreational lands are increasingly developed, opportunities for backcountry experiences will become scarcer, and the remote values of the jurisdiction will become even more highly prized.” (CLUP, pp. 59-60) (italics added)

I have quoted these passages from the CLUP at some length because they state unequivocally that the jurisdiction’s very identity depends both on its vast size and on the relative absence of development. To meet the rezoning criteria and receive project approval, the proposal must show consistency with the CLUP. But any large industrial project in the Boundary Mountains, such as the one proposed by TransCanada, would represent a massive presence of development and is totally at odds with the CLUP’s stated values for the jurisdiction, with the Commission’s lead policies for Location of Development (CLUP, p. 140), Forest Resources (CLUP, p. 136), and Recreational Resources (CLUP, p. 138), and with the traditional uses of the North Woods.

In light of all these factors—the ownership and management shifts that threaten both to suburbanize and industrialize the North Woods, the Commission’s statutory commitment to protect the integrity of the jurisdiction, and the increasing demand for back-country recreational resources—we should be jealously guarding every inch of semi-wild land we have left for the benefit both of Maine residents and of the visitors who come here hungry to experience landscapes that still retain significant wild character. 4

Remoteness

The words “remote” and “remoteness” occur over 100 times in the CLUP, often in conjunction with phrases like “undeveloped character.” Indeed, “remoteness and the relative absence of development are perhaps the most distinctive of the jurisdiction’s principal values.” One of the CLUP’s policies on Infrastructure states: “Require that new utility lines, pipelines, and their associated facilities be…(c) located so as not to inappropriately encroach upon or change the character of remote areas…” (CLUP, p. 142). In this project, new utility lines and the turbines associated with them would inappropriately encroach upon and change the character of a remote area. It is essential here to understand “remoteness” as precisely as possible and examine whether TransCanada’s contentions in Section 4.1.1.4, pp. 3-4, of the application, that the project will protect remoteness, and that the area is not remote, are correct.

1. Remoteness defined

The CLUP defines remote as “distant from permanently settled places in Maine” (CLUP p. A-1.) If the presence of electrical service, a post office, and Kerns Inn and Chalet can define a permanently settled place, then Eustis Village would be the closest one to the project. As the crow flies, the southernmost turbine of the B Series would be about nine miles from the village. There is no specification in the CLUP about just how distant from a permanently settled place “remote” has to be, but nine air miles with all but one of them across unorganized territory would seem to qualify. The Boundary Mountains meet the Commission’s criteria for remoteness.

2. Remoteness and proximity to roads

• LURC’s definitions add up to a recognition that the presence of an extensive road network and some low-impact, low-density, seasonal structures do not destroy that sense of remoteness that “10 million acres of largely [but not wholly] undeveloped forestland” can convey. If a two-wheel-drive car can drive to within a half mile of a remote pond and if a remote rental cabin need be only 1,001 feet away from a public road, then distance from a road, whether public or private, is not a key defining factor of remoteness.

• The applicant argues that the project area’s proximity to Route 27 and the presence of the Gold Brook and Spencer Roads, which permit traffic to travel through from Route 27 to US Route 201 disqualifies the area as remote. The applicant also writes in Section 4.1.1.4, p. 3 that "the project is located just 1 mile off of Route 27, which...is a major travel route in the area." That statement is misleading. Most of the project is several miles off Route 27. Also, the one most southwesterly turbine site, which is indeed about a mile off the highway as the crow flies, does not encompass the whole project. That's a bit like saying you've seen a whole giant when all you've seen is his toe. From that site to the most northerly one on Kibby Mountain is about seven miles, and from that northern site to the nearest point on Route 27 is about eight miles. 5

• The applicant implies further that the Gold Brook Road, the major logging road into the project area, disqualifies the area for remoteness for two reasons: first, because it is "actively used for commercial purposes [timber harvesting] during the week and experiences relatively high volumes of non-commercial traffic during the weekends, particularly during the fall hunting season" and, secondly, because it "connects Route 27 to Spencer Road" and thus enables travelers to drive through from Route 27 to US Route 201 to the east. (TransCanada application, Section 4.1.1.4, p. 3)

• These points--heavy use for logging purposes and for non-commercial, recreational travelers and connection between two major highways or settled areas by way of a remote area--are true of any number of major haul roads in the jurisdiction—the Golden Road is a prime example—but no one would deny they traverse remote territory. I camped and hunted just northeast of Seboomok Lake last fall and did not find my sense of remoteness violated by the knowledge that I could have gotten on the Golden Road just outside Millinocket and driven to Quebec City or that streams of logging trucks were going by on that same road within a couple of miles of me.

• The same circumstances prevail in the Boundary Mountains as in the rest of the Maine woods. You know perfectly well you are in a managed landscape, but you also know that you will not encounter any large-scale, permanent industrial or residential development and that you are surrounded on all sides by many miles of largely undeveloped forestland. Whether at Seboomok or in the Boundary Mountains, “[T]he vastness of the forest resource contributes to the impression of the North Woods as a wild and remote place…” (CLUP, p. 41)

Scenic Values

There is simply no way the proposed project can provide a level of protection for the area’s scenic resources “substantially equivalent” to that provided under the P-MA subdistrict. Relevant here are the (1) views from within the project area and (2) views of the project area from vantage points and various distances all around it.

• “Substantially” means “largely but not wholly.” From within the immediate area, the project would do just the opposite of what the law requires. Instead of leaving these ridgelines somewhat altered but largely protected, it would wholly transform both branches of the Kibby Range and about three quarters of Kibby Mountain from undeveloped ridgelines to industrial sites.

• Kibby Mountain, at 3,654 feet, is the keystone peak of the Boundary Mountains, the destination most hikers visit now and will continue to want to visit, provided it remains undeveloped. It is the highest peak in the region from Route 27 northeast to Jackman. On a clear day, it provides a commanding and lovely view not only over the surrounding mountains, which are all themselves above 3,000 feet, but also to 6 Bigelow, Sugarloaf, and Saddleback in the south, to Katahdin in the northeast, and Mt. Washington in the southwest. • Because some of the turbines sited on Kibby Mountain would be located at elevations of 3,000 feet and above, the tips of their rotor blades, at 410 feet, would reach elevations around 3,400 to 3,500 feet and so—at just a couple of hundred feet below eye level for an observer on the lookout platform on Kibby’s peak—would not fit harmoniously into the existing natural environment.

• TransCanada admits that “views from the fire tower on Kibby Mountain will include the full sweep of the proposed project.” But, TransCanada argues, because the view of the turbines is just a small piece of the 360-degree view from the top of the mountain, the views to the north, east, and west would not be compromised by the project. (Section 9.6.8.6, p. 74) Not so. In aesthetics, context is crucial, and no amount of telling people to just look the other way can make up for the fact that such massive industrial installations would be unacceptably intrusive in this mountain landscape.

• The tips of many of the turbine blades, spinning at elevations higher than Bigelow’s Cranberry Peak and almost as high as North and South Horn, would be as visible throughout the entire region as the highest mountain peaks are. Figure 9-8, the map on page 38 of Section 9.6.1 of TransCanada’s application, shows that the project will be visible in varying degrees from prominent locations as far out as twenty miles.

• The key to Figure 9-8 says that from the areas colored dark green on the map, 35 to 51 turbines will be visible; from the light green areas, 19 to 34. Table 9-10 (Section 9, pp. 52-54) provides further detail: 24 turbines visible from Jim Pond and Tim Pond, 5 from Crosby Pond (all three of these ponds are rated “outstanding” for their fishery and scenic resources), 16 from King and Bartlett Lake, 42 from the Porter Nadeau Road on Eustis Ridge, 44 from half of Flagstaff Lake, 44 from Cranberry Peak, the Horns, West Peak, and Avery Peak on the Bigelow Range. Kennebago Lake, location of one of Maine’s oldest and most famous fishing camps, is listed as “outstanding” in five of the seven resource categories rated in the Wildlands Lake Assessment. “The viewshed analysis,” the application says (Section 9.6.5.7, p. 61) “indicates potential visibility of a few turbines from a small area on Kennebago Lake.”

• What this information adds up to is this: In the area extending from Jackman in the east to Kennebago Lake in the west and to Bigelow in the south, the project would be a prominent skyline feature and all the more prominent for being unnatural. Add to its daytime prominence that seven turbines on Kibby Mountain and eighteen on the Kibby Range may be lit at night with pulsating red lights, and the claim that the project will have no undue adverse impact on the scenic resources of the entire region is to strip the words “no undue adverse impact” of their meaning.

7

Recreational Resources

The link between scenic and recreational resources is obvious. Indeed, seeing, all by itself, just going someplace to take in the sights, is the most popular important outdoor recreational activity in both Maine and the nation.

1. What do sightseers want to see?

The Maine State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan 2003-2008 (Draft for Review) (SCORP) prepared by Maine’s Bureau of Parks and Lands lists sightseeing as one of the most popular outdoor recreation activities both for Maine residents and for visitors to Maine.

• Table 23 in the SCORP (Chapter III, p. 25) shows that the greatest sightseeing attraction for overnight visitors to Maine was “Small Towns/Villages (66%).” Next in line, however, were “Wilderness (38%),” “Lakes/Rivers (37%),” and “Natural Environment (36%).” • The 1999-01 National Survey on Recreation and the Environment found that 60.4% of the US population 16 years and older participated in “Viewing Natural Scenery.” (ibid., p. 30) • Extensive and reliable surveys show that what both residents of this state and visitors to it want to see in the Maine outdoors is the “natural world” as “the dominant presence.”

2. What expectations do sightseers, hikers, and other outdoor recreationists have?

• David B. Field, who has dedicated much of his life to maintaining the Appalachian Trail and to protecting the trail corridor, had this to say in his critique of the LURC staff’s recommendation for approval of the Redington/Black Nubble project: “The central issue, from the perspective of the Appalachian Trail Community, is aesthetics--beauty. That is the core of the Trail experience…. aesthetics is also at the core of much of the attractiveness of Franklin County to tourists and full-time residents.”

• I could not agree more, but I would add that aesthetics is the core not only of the Appalachian Trail experience but of the Maine outdoor experience, period. Hikers don’t hike just the mountains of the Appalachian Trail with the expectation of finding beauty. They hike hundreds of other mountains and hills as well, many of them in northern Franklin County. And as Dave Field says, beauty is why many people born in western Maine still live here, why many of us from away have come here to live, why vacationers come back to Maine and its western mountains year after year.

• Hunters may go afield primarily to bring home some partridge or deer meat, but I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a hunting companion say, after a long day afield without even a glimpse of a retreating white tail, “But I had a beautiful hunt.” Or a skunked fisherman who comes off the stream and says not a word of complaint about his empty creel but simply, “What a gorgeous stretch of water.” 8

• The CLUP designates hunting and fishing as “primitive recreation pursuits” and notes that while hunters and fishers are drawn to the jurisdiction for its fish and wildlife resources, they are “also attracted by the opportunity to engage in these activities amidst a remote setting.” And, I would add, a beautiful setting.

• Although snowmobiling and ATV-riding, unlike hiking, hunting, fishing, snowshoeing, backpacking, and ski touring, are not designated as “primitive pursuits” in the CLUP, many snowmobilers and ATV-riders are primarily “sightseers.” They want access and adequate trail systems, but they too are seekers of beauty.

• An important omission in TransCanada’s 2006 survey of recreational uses in the proposed project area is the failure to include the firearm season for deer hunting in the survey. “Recreation use estimates were developed for both summer (May 23 – September 3) and peak hunting season (September 4 – October 31).” (Section 9.4.2.2, p. 29) If TransCanada had included November in its survey, it would have come out with a different peak hunting season, and it would not have found that only 3 percent of the visitors to the area were there for “Deer Hunting/Scouting.”

• I have no numbers to offer, but Duluth Wing, who has lived and hunted all his life in northern Franklin County and was the chief Maine Forest Service ranger in the region until his retirement, reports that hunter use of the area is heavy in firearm season and that many of the hunters come from Vermont for the express reason that the area is remote. These are not road hunters but are instead skilled hunters who will pick up a track in the morning and stick with it all day, sometimes traveling several miles in the process. Of course they come into the area in a vehicle, as all recreationists do, but they hunt on foot. For hunters like these, the Commission’s focus on supporting and protecting the primitive recreational resources and opportunities that only remote areas like the Boundary Mountains can provide is crucial.

3. Why are “primitive pursuits” a priority?

While the expansion of roads this project would entail—plus the presence of the turbines and the accompanying infrastructure of power lines, maintenance buildings, and substations— may make the project attractive to some motorized recreationists, it will discourage many others from visiting the area; and development on this scale will most certainly discourage the hikers, bushwhackers, skiers, snowshoers, and backpackers who are looking for those undeveloped landscapes that every year become harder and harder to find in these eastern United States. The CLUP therefore assigns a particularly high priority to resources “for primitive pursuits” (CLUP, p. 114) and states: “While the Commission encourages recreational diversity, it will ensure that new uses or activities do not diminish the experience for traditional recreational users.” (CLUP, p. 75)

4. How significant are the scenic and recreational resources in the project area? 9

In addition to claiming that this project can fit harmoniously into the environment, TransCanada argues that there are no significant scenic or recreational resources in the project area worthy of the protection afforded by a P-MA zone. The application, while conceding that the project area is “scenic,” repeatedly stresses that it is “not unique or spectacular”; therefore, there are no “unique scenic values” that can be compromised.” (Section 4.3.1.2, p. 18) Similarly, regarding recreation, TransCanada claims: “…the project area is not located within any unique recreational or conservation areas and is well buffered from such high-value areas, including the Appalachian Trail which is located approximately 15.5 miles to the south.” (ibid.) TransCanada’s assessments of both scenic and recreational values are incorrect and require a response:

• Nowhere in the statute, rules or the CLUP does it say that scenic and recreational resources must be either “unique” or “spectacular” to be worthy of protection.

• Even if we were to assume that a test of “unique” and “spectacular” were relevant, the view from Kibby described above qualifies as “spectacular” in terms both of the distances and features it takes in.

• As for uniqueness, I have climbed a lot of Maine hills and mountains and found every one of them to be unique. Probably, however, the applicant does not mean “unique” in that strict sense but means instead that the project area is “not unusual” or “not remarkable.” But even in this broader sense, the applicant is incorrect. I have not done a detailed geological survey of the state, but I am not aware of any other range that has that distinctive wishbone shape of the Kibby Range and includes in its overall length of about seven miles three peaks over 3,000 feet and six others that are within a hundred to two hundred feet of that height.

• On the spectacular and unique aspects of Kibby Mountain, my Appalachian Mountain Club Maine Mountain Guide has this to say (pp. 252-53): “This remote mountain is in the heart of the wilderness area north of Flagstaff Lake, east of Chain of Ponds, and south of the Canadian Atlantic RR running through Lac-Megantic, P.Q. (Quebec) and Jackman….There is an old MFS firetower stand with outstanding, extensive views of the surrounding wilderness.” (italics added)

• Earlier editions of the Maine Mountain Guide offer further comment: “Although the chief interests in Kibby Mtn. are in its wilderness location and view…the peculiar contour of the Kibby Mtn. range is an unusual feature. The range forms the complete circumference of an elongated circle except for an arc of perhaps 45 degrees on the SE. The crest runs for 7 or 8 m., curving clockwise over Kibby itself on the W to Spencer Bale on the E, and undulating from sags of 2,700 ft. to highs of 3,000 ft or more.” (italics added) (1971 edn., pp. 222-23)

• In addition to its highest point of 3,654 feet, Kibby Mountain has elevations of 3,262, 3202, and 3203 feet on its northeasterly “hook” the 1971 AMC Guide describes as 10 extending around to Spencer Bale Mountain; the elevations on Kibby Mountain in the area slated for turbines sites are, from north to south, 3,141, 3,112, 2,974, and 2,630 feet.

• Add to these features of Kibby Mountain and the Kibby Range that they occur in a cluster of mountains (Caribou, Spencer Bale, Tumbledown, Peaked, Three Slide, and Smart) all above 3,000 feet.

• Add, too, that in the valleys of these mountains the headwater brooks of the Spencer and Kibby Streams rise and, a few miles farther to the north, the headwaters of the Moose River, and you have what I would call quite a unique and spectacular area indeed, one that provides endless opportunities for mountain and streamside rambles and explorations.

• A further incorrect statement the petitioner makes is that because the project area lacks the extensive trail systems and “formalized recreational opportunities” of what it calls high-value recreational resources like the Appalachian Trail, the area is therefore of low recreational value. On the contrary, its lack of permanent trails and of formalized recreational opportunities like ski-touring centers and the downhill ski areas is its appeal. The AMC Mountain Guide makes this very point under the heading “Bushwhacking in the Maine Mountains.” “This guide mainly deals with mountains in Maine that have trails, but it does include a few peaks where hikers must bushwhack for short distances. It leaves out countless other bushwhacking sites, ranging from rather low hills to mountains approaching 4000 ft. The AMC Maine Mountain Guide Committee feels that such areas should remain without trails so that interested hikers can gain experience in bushwhacking…(italics added)” “Bushwhackers should not (italics in original) mark their routes….Markers destroy the concept of a mountain without trails.” (italics added) (p. xxiii)

• Neither I nor the AMC committee is denying the recreational value of permanent trails. The Appalachian Trail and many other trails in the state that volunteers put in endless hours maintaining are treasured resources. But at the same time, places without extensive trails are becoming more and more important to hikers and bushwhackers who want to get off the beaten paths and are undaunted by the lack of extensive, well-tended trails. Indeed, for such hikers, the less developed a region is, the better.

• The northern tier of Oxford, Franklin, and Somerset Counties is one of the state’s richest areas for such places. Stanley Bearce Atwood’s The Length and Breadth of Maine (1973 edn., p. 41) says that there are 16 mountains between 3,500 and 4,000 feet and 22 between 3,000 and 3,500 in Franklin County alone. A more exacting count based on more recent data may show these figures inaccurate to some extent. But the point remains: The entire western mountains region, with the Boundary Mountains at the heart of it, is an invaluable recreational resource.

• If the 4,000-foot peaks of the Appalachian Trail from Saddleback through Bigelow are Franklin County’s gold standard of mountain resources, then surely the only slightly 11 lower peaks reaching from Number 5 and 6 mountains to Kibby, Snow, and beyond to Whitecap and the Kennebago Divide are the silver standard. And as areas suitable for backcountry recreation continue to decline and demand for them continues to grow, that silver looks more like gold with each passing year.

5. What is the impact of logging on recreational values?

Another point TransCanada makes to support its claim of low recreational value and, therefore, no undue adverse impact on recreational uses is that the project area is heavily roaded, has been heavily logged, and will continue to be logged. Here, the applicant’s facts are correct, but I draw different conclusions from them.

• As long as forestry and outdoor recreation remain principal uses of the North Woods, recreationists, wherever they go, are going to encounter logging operations, some recent, some old, some carried out with protection of viewsheds in mind, others not. As they travel to a trailhead or a favorite trout pond or stream, they are also going to see, and themselves make use of, the extensive road network that makes modern, heavily mechanized timber harvesting possible.

• As long as the proposed project area remains undeveloped, what it looks like now does not have to determine how it will look for all time. Soil productivity in this region is excellent; the forest can recover. Logging roads no longer in use can be gated off and put to bed. If Governor Baxter had been discouraged by heavily cut over land, we would have no Baxter State Park.

• Given that the jurisdiction now contains some 30,000 miles of logging roads and that timber harvesting is ongoing throughout it, scenic and recreational values in Maine would have disappeared long ago if they could not coexist, however uneasily sometimes, with roads and forest operations.

• The key point here is that forestry operations in the project area, though they do impinge on its scenic and recreational values, do not permanently alter its character. They do not introduce into an area where the natural world is still the dominant presence forty-four machines that would be almost constantly in motion and would rise up nearly ten times the height of the surrounding forest.

6. Is there other supporting evidence for the conservation values of the project area?

• The Northern Forest Alliance (NFA) has identified five wildland areas in Maine deserving special conservation consideration . Among them is the Western Mountains Wildland, which the Alliance defines as extending “[F]rom the Canadian border and Boundary Bald Mountain in the north to the Saddleback and Sugarloaf Mountain region in the south.”

• The mountains NFA singles out for special mention in its description of the region are: 12

“• 8 of Maine’s 12 highest mountains: Bigelow, Abraham, Saddleback, Sugarloaf, Crocker, Redington, Spaulding, the Horn • Kibby Mountain • Kibby Range • Boundary Bald”2

• Still further support for the values of the Boundary Mountains is found in a lengthy and thorough survey titled Inventory and Ranking of the Key Resources of the Northern Forest Lands of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine” published in September 1993 and written by staff members of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the Maine Audubon Society, the latter two of which are interveners in this proceeding. In this document, an area designated P-1d, which includes the Boundary Mountains, is rated very high for its physical resources.3

• Perhaps most important here is that the proposed wind project is located in a Protected Mountain Area (P-MA) subdistrict. Particularly relevant is this passage in the CLUP (p. 40): “A number of protection zones are applied to resources that can be used for energy production, such as High Mountain Area Protection zones….In all these cases, the focus of these zones is the resource, not the energy which can be produced from it.”

• A passage in the CLUP, though dealing primarily with recreational development as it might affect forestry operations, is nonetheless pertinent here: “The Commission will identify recreation activities that are compatible with forestry and other traditional uses and promote those in the North Woods. Development which commits land irrevocably to other uses and detracts from the forest resource will be directed to locations where it will not significantly affect this valuable economic and recreational resource.” (p. 49) If this principle applies to forest resources in General Management zones “where forest and agricultural activities are allowed and encouraged without significant restrictions,” (CLUP, p. 6) then it should apply in spades in a Protected Mountain Area, where significant restrictions are in force.

• These last two quotations address the heart of the matter: Because the proposed project cannot provide substantially equivalent protection to the scenic and recreational values and uses of this P-MA zone, the project should be directed to a location where it will not degrade those values and uses.

2 Both NFA quotes are from the website www.northernforestalliance.org, accessed on August 26, 2007. 3 “Area P-1d. This area stretches from Moosehead Lake to the western Maine border and encompasses much of the upper Kennebec River watershed. Containing 47 townships, the area is the largest area of outstanding physical resource value in the study region. In addition, Area P-1d had the highest total evaluation score of all the outstanding areas, and is the only one in which all three resources (lakes, mountains and rivers) scored significantly higher than the regional average Seventy percent of the townships in the area received points for mountains, though none of the mountains are over 4000 feet.” Inventory and Ranking of the Key Resources of the Northern Forest Lands of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine (1993), p. 16. 13 7. What is the connection between remoteness and recreation?

The link between remoteness and the Commission’s recreational policies is clear. “Consistent with state statute and its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the Commission’s approach to recreational uses focuses on supporting and protecting primitive recreational resources and opportunities.” (italics added) (CLUP, p. 68) Primitive recreation is defined as “Those types of recreational activities associated with non-motorized travel, including fishing, hiking, hunting, wildlife study and photography, wild crop harvesting, trapping, horseback riding, tent and shelter camping, canoe portaging, cross country skiing, and snowshoeing.” (Chapter 10, 10.02, p. 21) As one impact of development, the CLUP cites “Loss of primitive recreational opportunities and natural character values as more remote areas are developed and access is improved.” (p. 119)

While the CLUP does recognize the need for diverse recreational opportunities, there are good reasons why the focus of the Commission’s approach is on primitive recreation “associated with non-motorized travel.” First, hunting, fishing, trapping, snowshoeing, hiking, and canoe travel are integral to the Maine landscape. They are, if you will, part of the Maine “brand,” as the recent Brookings Institution report Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places might put it. Second, many Mainers choose to live here to take part in these activities and enjoy the landscapes that support them; and many visitors choose to vacation here for the same reasons. Not only are these non-motorized activities crucial to our way of life; they are also crucial to our economy now and will be increasingly so in the future. The CLUP recognizes this, hence the repeated references in it to the need to preserve remote areas.4

My final and perhaps most important point in considering remoteness, however, is that reflected in a sentence previously quoted: “Remote, undeveloped qualities are also particularly sensitive to permanent changes in the landscape resulting from development.” (Italics added) (CLUP, p. 115) Whatever changes roads and logging have worked in the Boundary Mountains, those changes are not permanent. The changes this project would bring to the area, on the other hand, would be both massive and irrevocable. This project is not just one more development straw that won’t come anywhere near breaking the camel’s back; it is a bundle of straw big enough and heavy enough to break every bone in the camel’s body and drive it down into the ground to boot.

Conclusion

In the preceding three sections, I have tried to show, successfully I hope, that the Boundary Mountains constitute a remote region possessed of valuable scenic and recreational

4 “Some recreation-based businesses are dependent on the maintenance of the remote and undeveloped character of many parts of the jurisdiction. Sporting camps and remote campgrounds are two examples of businesses that depend on these values. Guide services, nature tours, and outdoor leadership schools are others. The demand for such ‘nature-based tourism’ is on the rise nationally, and opportunities within the jurisdiction appear considerable.” (CLUP, p. 75) 14 resources. The proposed project therefore cannot meet the legal criteria governing rezoning from a P-MA to a D-PD zone or conform either with the Commission’s broad goals or with several of its specific goals and policies for the jurisdiction listed on pages 134-43 of the CLUP.

In closing, I would like to return again briefly to the big picture I mentioned early in my testimony. The Comprehensive Land Use Plan rightly speaks of the powerful mystique of the North Woods. That mystique is both fragile and priceless, an intangible and unquantifiable quality that nonetheless depends on the continuing existence of very tangible resources: large tracts of unbroken forest big enough to get lost in, miles of lake shores and river banks and mountaintops where no electric lights pop on at night, not wilderness by any means but managed forestlands with some precious, wild character left in them. The Boundary Mountains should remain one of those tracts, an important resource now and one that will be more precious still in decades to come. 15 Exhibit RK-1 Résumé Robert Kimber Freelance Writer and Translator

Professional Experience Because much of my work (translations, various stints as a university teacher of German, German literature, comparative literature, and non-fiction writing) is not relevant to this proceeding, I will include here only what is relevant. Almost all my writing has been about rural, outdoor, and environmental topics. My work has appeared in Audubon, Country Journal, Down East, Field & Stream, Harrowsmith, Horticulture, Northern Woodlands, Yankee, and other periodicals and runs the gamut from how- to articles, portraits, and issues pieces to personal essays. Maine’s North Woods, its mountains and rivers, have been the focus of much of that work. I was a columnist for Down East for three years and for Country Journal for seven. I currently write a column for Northern Woodlands. I have also written many features for these and other magazines. My book publications reflect these same interests.

Made for the Country, 1991 Upcountry: Reflections from a Rural Life, 1991; paperback 2005 A Canoeist’s Sketchbook, 1991; paperback 2004 Living Wild and Domestic: The Education of a Hunter-Gardener, 2002 On Wilderness: Voices from Maine, edited with Phyllis Austin and Dean Bennett, 2003 A Place on Water: Essays, with Wesley McNair and Bill Roorbach, 2004

My parents operated Big Jim Pond Camps from 1955 to 1973, and in those years, particularly the early ones when I was still in college and could spend summers working at the camps, I explored Maine’s western mountains. And ever since my wife and I moved to Temple in 1971, I’ve continued to hike and go on canoe trips both in Maine and in Labrador and northern Quebec.

Conservation Work Board member, Natural Resouces Council of Maine, 1985-91 Vice-President for one term Recipient of NRCM Environmental Award 2003 Board member, Western Maine Audubon, 1999-present President, 2000-01 Board member, Tumbledown Conservation Alliance, 2000-present Member, Citizens Advisory Committee to the Northern Forest Lands Council Member, citizens advisory committee on the Nahmakanta purchase management plan Education Princeton University, A.B., 1956, English Literature; M.A., 1963, Ph.D., 1965, Germanic Languages and Literatures 16

CERTIFICATION

I do hereby certify that the attached, entitled

PRE-FILED DIRECT TESTIMONY OF ROBERT KIMBER, ON BEHALF OF FRIENDS OF THE BOUNDARY MOUNTAINS BEFORE THE MAINE LAND USE REGULATION COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF THE REZONING PETITION ZP 709 OF TRANSCANADA MAINE WIND DEVELOPMENT, INC. AND PLUM CREEK MAINE TIMBERLANDS, LLC., FOR A 132 MW WIND ENERGY PLANT IN SKINNER TOWNSHIP AND KIBBY TOWNSHIP, FRANKLIN COUNTY, MAINE is my direct testimony, prepared by me for the MAINE LAND USE REGULATION COMMISSION for their proceeding on Rezoning Petition ZP 709.

Signed: ______Robert Kimber 147 Intervale Road P.O. Box 525 Temple, Maine 04984

August ____, 2007 State of Maine County of Franklin, SS.

Personally appeared before me Robert Kimber, and being duly sworn on his oath, acknowledged the forgoing to be his testimony and exhibits, and his free act and deed.

______Notary Public: My Commission Expires: