Mainers sue Central Maine Power over flashing lights on utility towers

WOOLWICH (WGME) -- Another lawsuit has been filed against Central Maine Power, this time over flashing lights on two utility towers that went up a year ago on the Kennebec River.

Mainers voice concerns over flashing lights on CMP transmission towers

For the past year, 10 lights, on two CMP towers overlooking the Kennebec River and Merrymeeting Bay, have been flashing nonstop day and night, and some who live in the area want it stopped.

Midcoast residents upset at flashing lights from CMP tower

"It bothers my eyes, bothers my head,” Ed Friedman of Friends of Merrymeeting Bay said. “A neighbor with migraine headaches, it aggravates that."

Ed Friedman claims the lights even caused one man to have seizures.

"Has epilepsy and can no longer be here because of the flashing lights," Friedman said.

Friedman and the group "Friends of Merrymeeting Bay" filed a nuisance lawsuit Tuesday against Central Maine Power over the lights, which flash white in the day and red at night.

"CMP chose to dramatically change what was on the towers, installing a set of 10 lights that flash 60 times a minute over an area of 4,000 square miles," Friends of Merrymeeting Bay attorney William Most said.

CMP says it's working on a project to remedy the transmission tower lights, while maintaining aircraft safety. It's an aircraft detection lighting system where the lights would only turn on when planes are within three and a half miles of the towers.

"By the end of the month, we expect to have that radar detection system installed on the towers, so that the lights will be off most of the time," CMP Spokesperson Catharine Hartnett said.

But plaintiffs are seeking other alternatives to radar and microwaves, including a pilot-controlled lighting system.

"There are other less intrusive measures that would achieve their safety," Most said.

They point to studies which suggest a possible link between radar and cancer.

"Exposure to radio frequency radiation is at minimum a possible human carcinogen," Friedman said.

But CMP says using radar to detect aircraft is a nationally accepted solution.

“We are going on the best advice from aviation consultants and the FAA that this is a solution that has worked in different places across the country," Hartnett said.