PITTSBURG is this state’s northernmost town.
A border town, it’s the entry location of Northern Pass’ proposed electric transmission lines. It is here that Eversource, through its subsidiary Northern Pass, will make its statement of how it has always intended to treat New Hampshire and, in its most recent iteration, still does.
Northern Pass intends (according to its online documentation, maps, aerials) to place its first three transmission towers in delineated wetlands adjacent to Hall Stream and crossing over Hall Stream Road and onto the forested lands of Pittsburg in the same general area that Portland Natural Gas Transmission System has buried a 24-inch and parallel 18-inch gas line.
These pipelines wind through much of northern New Hampshire, eventually reaching Portland, Maine.
Of course, we all remember how difficult it is for Northern Pass to bury two 6-inch electric lines in this same geographic area. Nearly impossible, or so the claim goes.
Back in Pittsburg, when Northern Pass’ lines return to public view as they reach Route 3 and cross the Connecticut River, and because it also approaches lands of the Forest Society, these lines are suddenly routed underground, under river and under Route 3. What happened back at the Canadian border at Hall Stream and Hall Stream Road is a travesty.
Eversource had the opportunity to say that how it affected the environment mattered to that company. Did they realize the long-lasting impact on those residents of the immediate area, who would now get to ride beneath the lines and between the massive towers every day?
I guess corporate wants to remind us of Eversource’s enormity and importance in the world and those small folks of that vicinity can just suck it up. What once was a bucolic, small, river valley with farms and modest homes now will have a towered entry to their rural community because someone didn’t want to include this area in the scenic list. Therefore, Eversource, aka Northern Pass , needn’t concern itself. (I was told by Northern Pass reps that this was the criteria required to be included in scenic views at their workshop in Pittsburg).
Never mind that a directional bore under Hall Stream, and Hall Stream Road would provide the same relief that motoring folks would now get over at Route 3 and the Connecticut River.
It’s too bad residents along Hall Stream Road don’t have as strong a voice as the Forest Society or the stream of vacationers who travel Route 3. They are at the end of the road, so to speak, so unless you are there to enjoy their dream(s) you would never know.
Neither the regulators nor Northern Pass have expressed interest.
There are any number of similar situations in other towns scattered along the Northern Pass route. It is for those voices we need to add our own. The “new” plan, like the old ones, is small-minded and harmful — damn, the first three towers are in delineated wetlands when they could go under with directional boring — never mind the aesthetics. There are those who called for dialogue in the process. The first words from Northern Pass as expressed in its plans to enter New Hampshire remain the same as Day 1, dismissive of local residents, and aesthetically and environmentally harmful when it needn’t be so. It just seems that there is little interest in “getting it right” at Eversource or Northern Pass. The goals right now seems to be to get the noise level down and trying to buy whatever allegiances may be bought.
Dave Enos is a resident of Pittsburg.
Click below to read the op-ed as published in the Union Leader