CHELSEA -- Town officials are looking into developing an ordinance that will regulate wind turbines.

The Planning Board will present a draft proposal to selectmen for consideration.

Code Enforcement Officer Bob St. Pierre said the town manager asked him to see how other communities in the area were addressing wind turbines.

"I got back to the Planning Board and Tim Coitrone spent some time writing up a draft that could be considered at a later date by the town if we wanted a windmill ordinance," St. Pierre said.

Coitrone, chairman of the Planning Board, said the town has no rules to regulate wind turbines, which have become more popular with the increase in energy costs.

"We used ordinances from other towns and got some similarities in the rough draft," Coitrone said. "It's nothing set. It still has to go to a public hearing, and there will be changes on it, and then to town meeting for vote. It covers mostly safety issues."

He said one of the requirements in the ordinance is a 110-percent setback from the homeowner's property line. That's so if a wind turbine were to fall for any reason, it would land on the owner's property and not the next-door neighbor's house, he said.

Interim Town Manager Bob Drisko, who resigned as of Friday, said an ordinance would be good for the town and protect homeowners.

"If you get a small, older subdivision with a couple homes in it and they have 1 and 11/2 acre lots, there could be a windmill every 10 feet down the road," Drisko said. "This would protect homeowners so they don't get a windmill on either side. They can be noisy and some people just don't want to look at them."

Town officials also are considering replacing Chelsea's Aquifer Protection Ordinance with a new state regulation that closes some significant loopholes in protecting private and public drinking-water wells.

"In most ways, it's stricter than what we have already," Coitrone said.

St. Pierre said the town's ordinance was adopted in 1991 to protect the community's water supply.

"It was a good ordinance," St. Pierre said Thursday. "It worked for years and afforded some protection. But there was some talk by the Planning Committee about doing away with our aquifer ordinance and abiding by the state's regulations so we don't have two conflicting set of rules."

He said it would be up to the public to decide if they want to abandon the ordinance and that it would be discussed at public hearings.

"If they decide to go that way, it will appear on a warrant at a town meeting," he said.

The Act to Prevent Contamination of Drinking Water will go into effect on Oct. 1.

The law restricts the location of new aboveground oil-storage tanks.

The 2008 law defines a wellhead protection zone as being within 300 feet of a private well, 1,000 feet of a public well or the "source water protection area" of a public well mapped by the Maine Drinking Water Program.

"There's also a new regulation coming July 1, 2009, that will deal with above ground storage tanks," St. Pierre said.

That law, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection's Web site, requires more stringent installation standards for home-heating oil tanks located within the wellhead protection zone of a community drinking water supply.

Mechele Cooper -- 623-3811,

Ext. 408

mcooper@centralmaine.com