Wetlands Impacts Could be Avoided
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers outlining recommendations for the proposed Northern Pass transmission line. The letter states that adverse impacts to wetlands and wildlife could be avoided by burying 40 miles of the line along existing roadways in the North Country, where the project proposes instead to go overhead by carving out a new right-of-way where none exists today.
According to the letter, "The additional 40 miles of burial provided in the northern segment of the route adjacent to existing roadways would reduce direct and secondary impacts to many streams and wetlands. Further, given the information provided by the Northern Pass application by avoiding impacts to the 40 miles of forest in the north, the hybrid alternative would also avoid many impacts to vernal pools and exemplary natural communities compared to Alt 7. (Alt 7 is the the altenative preferred by Northern Pass.
The letter was sent to Jennifer McCarthy, chief of the regulatory division of the Army Corps of Engineers from Jacqueline LeClair, chief of the wetlands protection unit of the EPA. The EPA has legal authority under the Clean Water Act to veto a CWA Section 404 wetlands permit issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The Hybrid Alternative referred to in the letter would bury the NP line down Route 3 from Pittsburg to Whitefield. From Whitefield the route would proceed as in the proposal now before the SEC (overhead in existing ROW from Whitefield to Transition Station 5 just north of Route 302 in Bethlehem). In the Hybrid Alternative the line would enter the USA as in the proposal before the SEC (over Hall’s Stream to Transition Station #1).
The letter is very likely to become part of the record at the NH Site Evaluation Committee, where Northern Pass is seeking a permit to build the project. The SEC has the authority to say no, yes, or yes with conditions to the application, and presumably could condition a permit on such things as additional burial to avoid adverse impacts.
Click here to read the full text of the letter from the EPA: https://forestsociety.org/resource/epa-letter-regarding-northern-pass
Click below to read news coverage.
https://forestsociety.org/news-article/northern-pass-hits-another-obsta…
http://indepthnh.org/2017/09/28/epa-burying-40-more-miles-of-northern-p…
http://indepthnh.org/2017/09/29/northern-pass-epa-siting-benefits-of-40…