BANGOR, Maine - An independent candidate for Maine's 2nd Congressional District says he has a plan to get Maine's rural economy moving again, following the collapse of the state's paper industry: "Construction of two publicly-owned nuclear power plants in the Katahdin region, along the Penobscot River."
Mike Turcotte outlined the plan at a press conference on Thursday. The nuclear plants, he says, would be located in the vicinity of Woodville, and could cleanly generate more than enough energy for the entire state.
"We hear the governor constantly say that the electricity rates are too high for industrial and manufacturing," Turcotte said. "We have a power plant that's going to generate 156 percent of the state's power - we'll have a lot of electricity to sell at greater discount."
And he says the plant could create 800 permanent jobs. But the structures would come at a cost of some $12 billion, to be funded through state bonds. Nuclear waste he says would likely be stored on site.
Another part of the plan involves creating a Maine Woods State Preserve out of 154 unorganized townships in northwestern Maine, where residential and commericial developments would be banned.
Both parts of the plan would be presented as a single referendum question.
Turcotte also outlined a plan to increase farm revenues in northern Maine by encouraging potato farmers in Aroostook County to grow ginseng, a crop which he says fetches $10,000 more per acre than Maine's iconic white spuds.
