Don't Be a Nuisance! (FOMB vs. CMP)988FOMB CMP 595301
Channel: Friends of Merrymeeting Bay
Date: 2022-01-13

On July 21, 2020, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay (FOMB) filed a nuisance lawsuit against Central Maine Power (CMP) in Maine Superior Court, alleging the company’s discretionary tower lighting and then-in-process radar facility at the

Chops are anuisance because they unnecessarily harmed and threatened to further harm residents and wildlife in this unique natural area. For 80 years towers stood at this power line crossing of the Kennebec River and never were they or the lines lit to warn aircraft, even though air traffic in the area was far higher in post WW II years thannow. 

In 2019, CMP replaced the towers and with no public notice or regulatory disclosure, the new towers were lit with three levels of LEDstrobing lights, white in the daytime and red at night flashing a total of 600 times/minute. Tower lighting is not required by the FAA, only recommended, and in fact the FAA cited their lighting “advisory only” status as an excuse in rejecting FOMB requests for environmental review of the project. 

After about a year of complaints, CMP partially ameliorated their original lighting nuisance with the installation of an active radar aircraft detection system designed to turn lights on only when aircraft are within a certain distance of the towers. Radar emits radiofrequency microwave radiation classified as a possible human carcinogen by the World Health Organization in 2011 and was found to show clear evidence of cancer and other biological effects in a ten year study by the National Toxicology Program, part of NIH, completed in 2018. Thus CMP compounded one nuisance with another. 

Nuisance law is some the oldest existing law and some of the earliest nuisance cases involve light. Prior to passage of the Clean Water Act and other specific environmental legislation, nuisance law played a major role in cleaning polluted rivers and other natural resources in Maine and elsewhere.