Strong Public Opposition Heard, Northern Pass Witness Underwhelms
The Site Evaluation Committee charged with rendering judgment on the application by Eversource for the 192-mile Northern Pass Transmission line through New Hampshire heard from some 50 members of the public regarding the project. All but two opposed the project as proposed.
"At these heights, we believe Northern Pass would literally disfigure the face of our state," boomed the first speaker of the day, State Rep. Neal Kurk of Weare. Reading from a joint statement supported by more than 100 current and past state legislators, Kurk continued: "It would permanently scar some of our most iconic landscapes, destroying vistas that represent what is most special and unique and New Hampshire to residents and visitors alike--our sense of place and the image we seek to project to the rest of the country and the world.
"It is inconceivable to us that New Hampshire's 'brand,' once signified by the Old Man of the Mountains' craggy profile, could soon be represented by a string of industrial-grade steel towers..." Kurk thundered. It was a theme that would be heard again and again from public speakers in front of the state Site Evaluation Committee hearing the application by Northern Pass, the proposed 192-mile transmission line that would run from the Canadian border in Pittsburg, NH, through the White Mountains to Franklin, on to Concord and east to Deerfield. Of the 41 speakers, only two spoke in favor of the project.
Click here to read the full text of the joint statement from State Representatives Neal Kurk, Howard Moffatt, Suzanne Smith, Bob Guida and Griffin Roberge.
Melissa Elander, of Easton, used a hand cart to deliver to the SEC boxes of petitions signed by more than 20,000 people who, like her, opposed Northern Pass. She made the point that such voluminous opposition was evidence that Northern Pass "doesn't represent the values of New Hampshire’s citizens, visitors or Eversource ratepayers."
Other speakers opposed to Northern Pass included Paul Pouliot of Alton, a member of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People who spoke for several members of the Pessamit Innu First Nation, whose land was taken to construct several large scale dam facilities to produce the electricity. Pouliot, reading a statement from Innu Chief Rene Simon, said that government-owned Hydro-Quebec has created an environmental disaster by constructing large-scale hydro dams, and said that approving Northern Pass would be tantamount to "enabling Hydro-Quebec in its act of genocide" against the Innu. Read InDepthNH's coverage of here. The Pessamit Innu story also went national.
Other speakers were sensitive to the cause of the Pessamit Innu, including Stephen Pascucci of Franklin.
Earlier in the week, the seven-member subcommittee had picked up the adjudicative hearings with Day 21, with Northern Pass witness Mitch Nichols, who had submitted a report commissioned by Northern Pass regarding the potential inpacts to tourism of the proposed project. After two full days of cross-examination by the Counsel for the Public and intervenors, Nichols' report was figuratively shredded as being incomplete, lacking specifics and failing to incorporate a broader range of stakeholder input.
Under cross-examination by Forest Society attorney Amy Manzelli (BCM Environmental Land Law) Nichols acknowledged that this was the first time he represented a utility and that he did not consider the impacts from traffic or the impact to aesthetic and historic resources. Nichols also admitted, based on his own prior work, that scenery and natural beauty are the feature of greatest importance to New Hampshire’s tourists.
Northern Pass paid Nichols approximately $250,000 as of February 2015, before he did the bulk of his work. Mr. Nichol’s originally testified that he had been paid only about $100,000 total, and had to be corrected. You can read reporter Garry Rayno's story about Nichols here.
In the meantime, Northern Pass is facing increasing pressure from the City of Concord to bury the proposed section of the line that would go through the capitol city.
In Concord, where Northern Pass wants to fit the Northern Pass transmission line overhead along an already crowded right of way that passes through wetlands, over I-393 and through compact neighborhoods, the tight fit may require the highest tower height of the entire proposed project--165 feet. Concord is a formal intervenor in the SEC process, represented by Deputy City Councilor Danielle Pacik.
On Friday July 21, Pacik was among those who cross-examined Northern Pass witness Lisa Shapiro regarding the likely property tax consequences of Nor For more information about Concord's position on Northern Pass, visit http://www.concordnh.gov/northernpass
The Forest Society continues to advocate full burial of the proposed Northern Pass Transmission line along appropriate transportation corridors, such as I-93, if it is to be built. You can help support our advocacy at the SEC here.