I was disappointed to see in the news that a recent jury ruling in favor of CMP and Avangrid overturning the votes of Mainers to reject the CMP Corridor. It seemed obvious CMP was speeding up its building of the corridor, anticipating a loss at the polls, so it could claim it already had a “vested right” to build.
What has not been in the news (at least in Maine) is the mounting evidence that corridor advocates were making claims about corridor climate benefits that were untrue.
Methane emissions are 80-plus times more potent than carbon dioxide emissions in the short-term, and the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stated that without more aggressive short-term action, we would not meet our climate goals. New dams result in huge methane emissions as flooded organic matter decomposes.
Apparently CMP and Avangrid didn’t get the memo. It’s been reported in Canada that Hydro-Quebec will need to build several new dams to meet growing demand. Repeated outages in Quebec call into question Hydro-Quebec’s ability to even meet current demand.
With the corridor, there would be more dams, more methane, and no climate benefit. There might even be a climate cost. Isn’t that ironic?
Maine legislators now have an opportunity, with LD 1658, to ensure climate benefit claims are verified and, when they prove to be false, levy fines. The legislature should pass LD 1658 to ensure accountability now and in the future when companies make false climate claims to win votes.
Ed Buzzell, Maine Guide
Moxie Gore, Maine
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