Northern Pass Project Remains a Lightning Rod

by Dan Seufert, Union Leader


The new Northern Pass project proposal from Eversource-NH — which buries an additional 52 miles of power lines — is generating strong reaction.

“I think the new plan is very compelling,” said Tom Colgan of Wagner Forest Management in Lyme, who has supported the project from the beginning. “(Eversource) has done a lot of good listening to a lot of people, and this should alleviate a lot of the people’s concerns.”

But Pete Martin of Plymouth, who has been fighting Northern Pass with his wife, Pamela, from the plan’s inception, called the proposal a “gambit.” Martin is asking for the burial of “the entire project.”

“Volunteering to bury 60 miles of the line down state road (right-of-way) puts the lie to the non-stop lying we have been subjected to by Northern Pass spokespeople for the last five years, that burial was ‘10-15 times more expensive than overhead,’ and that undergrounding was impossible due to the fact that New Hampshire has granite rock,” Martin said.

Earlier this week, the company announced the second major revision of the project path in two years.

To read the full story in the Union Leader, click below.