Concord resident Gene Rudolph has one big question when it comes to the Northern Pass transmission project: “Why can’t they bury it?”
As proposed, the transmission line would run overhead right next to McKenna’s Purchase, a condominium development near Loudon Road that Rudolph has called home for the past 12 years.
“We’re not happy with the project,” said Rudolph, who favors burial of the line. “I’ll even give them a shovel.”
Rudolph showed up Wednesday night at the Grappone Center in Concord, where Northern Pass held a public information session on the project, the first of five such events required for the state’s energy permitting process.
It was the first time Northern Pass officials have answered questions and taken comment from the public on the company’s newly revised project, which buries an additional 52 miles of the transmission line, creates a $200 million fund to invest in communities that host the project and dedicates a portion of the hydropower to New Hampshire customers to stabilize energy rates.
Many of the attendees’ questions, like Rudolph’s, focused on burial – why the company won’t bury more of the proposed 192-mile transmission line, and why the company decided not to bury the line for its 8-mile path through Concord.
A top official said Wednesday that Northern Pass isn’t planning to bury the line through Concord because the company didn’t hear widespread public outcry to do so.
“We did not hear a lot of statewide or stakeholder-wide expression for any particular town, other than the White Mountain National Forest,” said Bill Quinlan, president of Eversource Energy New Hampshire Electric Operations. The comment drew reaction from the crowd, one man said loudly, “I don’t buy that.”
Click below to read the full story in the Concord Monitor.