AUGUSTA – The Maine Department of Environmental Protection released a draft order today permitting the New England Clean Energy Connect Project proposed by Central Maine Power.
The draft order includes requirements limiting the proposed transmission corridor to 54 feet at its widest point in Segment 1 – the roughly 53-mile section proposed to run from the Canadian border down to The Forks – rather than the previously proposed 150 feet. In a statement announcing the issuance of the draft permit, DEP said that the project as originally proposed would have had “significant impacts,” particularly in that section.
“The record information also shows that it is feasible to avoid and minimize those impacts through a variety of mitigation measures,” the DEP statement said. “The draft order does so, imposing a set of conditions identified and developed through the public process. Several of these conditions have never before been required for construction and maintenance of transmission lines in the State of Maine.”
In addition to the limit to corridor width, the order requires the preservation of approximately 14 miles of canopy preservation, the conservation of more than 700 acres of deer wintering area and deer traveling corridors across the transmission corridor and prohibits the use of herbicides throughout Segment 1.
Other requirements would include requiring CMP conserve 40,000 acres in western Maine, $1.87 million for culvert replacement projects aimed at enhancing fish habitats and improving water quality.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection today released a draft order that requires an unprecedented level of environmental and natural resource protection,” the DEP wrote in its statement.
Three conservation groups that have indicated their opposition to the project criticized the decision in a joint statement, saying that the transmission corridor “continues to carve an unacceptable path through a globally significant forested landscape and provides no verifiable reduction in greenhouse gas pollution. While we appreciate the Department’s attempt to reduce impacts, this remains the wrong project in the wrong place.”
DEP is accepting written public comment on the draft order from March 13 to March 27. Written comments must be submitted by close of business on Friday, March 27. Before making a final decision, DEP will review and consider all written comments. To submit written comments on this draft order, please contact: Jim Beyer, Maine DEP, State House Station #17, Augusta, ME 04333. Email address is NECEC.DEP@maine.gov. Detailed information, including a copy of the draft order, can be found on Maine DEP’s website.
The NECEC project has already gotten approval from the Land Use Planning Commission, following the LUPC vote in January. Planners are currently seeking permitting through federal agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers and a presidential permit issued by the U.S. Department of Energy. There are also local permitting processes in organized municipalities along the corridor’s proposed route.
Here is my draft order,
NO CORRIDOR.
Thank You.
I don’t see why we need a REP and a LUPC,one would be sufficient, we Mainers also have no need for the corridor.
We Mainers…
Hmmmmm….
What happened to the multitudes of signatures collected? Not response enough?
If you add a joint CMP & MDIFW fish restocking program on a yearly rotating basis through the affected areas as needed and the planting of wildlife friendly tree canopy on both sides of the line,with a three percent harvest and a breast limit with so many feet of line done every year where possible. The planting of eco friendly blue berries, grass to control erosion and support wildlife and all this in writing of course. This sounds like a lot but it really is giving something for the people who are affected by all this to point at and say we still have a lot to offer anyone who wants to come to our area. With a little fine tuning this could be a win win for everyone.
As I understand it is on the November ballot but they can still go through with it. I encourage everyone to write to the address provided in the article to stop this from coming here in Maine.
I believe most folks who support the corridor may not have spent much time in the designated region. Though it is true that, due to logging, the area is far from being a pristine wilderness. But with greatly reduced clearcutting and expanded setbacks, evidence of such operations is far less visually offensive today then it has been historically. These days wise forestry practices like selective cutting are similar to gardening the forest and help to create faster-growing and healthier frees for this vital industry. My point is that the negative impact of the proposed power line would create a greater offensive visual scar on this still wild landscape and far more damage to the wild trout habitat that many of us, who frequent the area, cherish.
So Massachusetts needs more power. MA. has 1,500 miles of coastline and a100 miles of mountain range providing the potential for wind farms. It has 3 major rivers with many defunct water-powered generators that have potential, much like the Madison Dam, to transition from supplying power to the mill to selling it to the grid. Nearby Connecticut has 600 miles of coastline for windfarms and fallow tobacco fields that could be used for solar farms. I would think that combining all these options would cost MA ratepayers a lot less than the billion-dollar fiasco that CMP is proposing. And where is the proof that this project does indeed meet the criteria to be designated as a “Green Solution”? On whose authority?
6th Gen Mainer, I am an 11th generation Mainer had Maine not been part of Massachusetts prior to 1820, 8 generations in what is Franklin county. we logged at the Bigelow camps in the 1880s, and at Bower’s camp at Sugarloaf in the 1900s, Some even worked the old clapboard mills on Mt.Blue, My grandfather would tell how his father would get a ride on the railroad from the Bigelow camps down to Farmington to have Sunday supper with the rest of the family, some of whom worked for Dingley’s corn shop. I live about 20 miles south by way the crow flies from the site of where the NECEC new section will be. I hunt, fish and trap that region, I know that region, I fully support the NECEC.
The funny thing about the “green” standard, there is no “green” standard, as in a system by which all “green” things are measured, it’s pretty much a self regulating industry. However, when it comes to hydro dams and reservoirs, whether natural lake or man made, there are dozens of factors that come into play, but some of the common ones are visible carbon, invisible carbon and the unknown factor of methane(CH4), but more on that in moment. Visible carbon is just what it sounds like, carbon you can see. A tree for example is carbon you can see, it’s there, it sucks in CO2 and puts out O2 and stores the carbon, now let’s say there is a tree on a hill above a slow moving 100ft wide river. A strong wind comes and blows the tree down and it falls into the river, is it going to add more carbon to the environment, no it isn’t the only way it releases carbon into the air is if it burns, and there is no chance of that happening floating in a river, any carbon it gives off as it decays is going to fall to the river bottom and be stuck on the bottom, now for the methane, when organic things decay they give of methane, a dead tree is going to decay and give off methane regardless if it was laying on the ground or submerged in water. It gets tricky when the vegetation is submerged. Let’s say the tree falls into the river and the river is flooded by a dam to the depth of 75ft, the log becomes waterlogged and sinks to the bottom, the log is still going to decay but at a much slower rate, it may take years, there are people who take logs out of the water that have been there for better than 100 years. The thing is, that since it decays at a much slower rather than a dead one on land, it releases methane(that is going to be released any way) when it decays at a much slower rate. and since methane is water soluble some of that methane will remain in the water column or get broken down and never make it into the air. See, hydro power reservoirs aren’t all bad. Next is invisible carbon, this is carbon you can’t see, carbon in the dirt. As a tree starts life, it draws carbon from the ground and stores it, if it burns it releases it, flooded carbon in aquatic plant life may remain in the water column and on the bottom for years, most of the Earth’s carbon is contained in the ocean.
I hope this long winded explanation helps.
To HB (whitenoise).
Zzzzz…..Zzzzz….
Nope.
Evidently the signatures collected do not mean squat. The Governor supports the corridor and the DEP will usually follow her.
Zzzzz, Feel free to prove me wrong.
Thank you JS Kennedy. The most sensible comment I’ve seen on this subject. Americans have traditionally compromised on issues much more serious than this one.
Agreed, rather than seeing demons or turning this into a partisan issue, JS Kennedy’s idea does explore how this might work for everyone. I fear emotion has taken over for a lot of people though.
Scott emotions have taken over in too many day to day happening in today’s society ie. Corona, necec, politics. We as a society need to start using our brains and not so common common sense to get things done instead of letting emotions and feelings run the show. Too often people talk about how they feel when making a decision and not how they think a out it and come to a conclusion. Our society is in a downward tail spin and unless we step up and start using our heads instead of our hearts we will all be standing in a “breadline” waiting for an inept government to take care of us.
I will be sending my comments to the Maine DEP in hopes that they will look at alternative routes. One mandate of any environmental impact assessment must be to evaluate the impact of alternative routes compared to the proposed route. The permitted route through Vermont, while more expensive to CMP and Massachusetts, is the least impact to the environment. Any Department of Environmental Protection should consider the proposal that has the least negative impacts to the environment to be the best proposal.