Easement Setbacks: Northern Pass Shoots Itself in the Foot

Easement setbacks are the distances from the edge of the right-of-way (ROW) that utility poles and towers are located. FERC has issued new guidelines concerning setback distances for new overhead power lines.


In a late Friday afternoon post on its website blog for June 22, Northern Pass took a swipe at a video produced by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. Entitled "Northern Pass Hurts New Hampshire Families," the video features a young family in Deerfield NH; the PSNH ROW crosses their land. The couple recounts how a PSNH agent approached them and told them that Northern Pass could build as close as 16' to their house. In other words, the setback for a 90'-140' transmission tower and wires would be 0 from the edge of the ROW. This was an attempt to get the couple to grant PSNH more land or rights to widen the existing ROW.

In its post, Northern Pass asserts that the family's house is 20' from the ROW and the centerline of the ROW is therefore 55' from the house (statistics that are irrelevant to the issue of how close to the house Northern Pass would actually construct its towers), says the couple is distorting the truth, and then blames it on the Forest Society.

We'll let you decide who is lying, the Deerfield couple or Northern Pass. But why is Northern Pass so worried about the Deerfield video?

It has partly to do with easement setbacks and how much space utility developers should have on a ROW in order to build a new power line. The most recent guidelines from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), issued May 31, 2012, would stop Northern Pass from building their new overhead transmission line on PSNH's historic, narrow easements, acquired 60 to 80 years ago.

FERC has issued its setback guidelines as the conclusion to its staff study of the massive power outages that resulted from the October 2011 nor'easter snowstorm, which caused estimated damages of $1 billion to $3 billion in New England and adjacent states. It became fashionable among utilities to blame the whole mess on the trees, not on the response to the outages, and, indeed, limbs and branches falling on power lines was the direct reason for much of the problem. But trees are a (splendid) fact of life in the northeast. The immmediate question for FERC was what to do about the overlap of trees and power lines, the ongoing conflict between nature and technology, in this case, overhead high voltage transmission lines. The distribution lines that run along roads and bring power into your house may be able to tolerate contact with trees; high voltage transmission lines cannot.

In the case of existing power lines, FERC sides with the lines. It recommends more prudent and consistent vegetation management -- tree cutting -- by utility companies so that even limbs and branches outside the easement do not endanger existing power lines. Call it eminent-domain-by- vegetation-management if you will.

For new power lines, however, FERC comes down on the side of the existing trees. That is, FERC recommends that new power lines have sufficient set backs to prevent "fall ins" -- trees outside the easement falling in on the lines. The burden is on the developer to acquire wide enough ROWs to accommodate existing and future vegetation conditions outside its easement. Put simply, new power lines should not hug the edges of the ROW.

Here's what FERC said:

Preventing fall-ins from both inside and outside the right-of-way is easier if utilities consider vegetation management needs when siting new transmission lines and acquiring new easements. Therefore, staff recommends that utilities carefully assess vegetation and growth rates in the area of planned lines in order to establish the appropriate right-of-way width. For example, if native trees have a mature height of 100 feet, the easement should cover an area wide enough to ensure that existing and future trees outside of the right-of-way will not fall into the facilities. [Emphases added.]

If native trees, such as New Hampshire's ubiquitous white pines that reach 100', abut the ROW, then new transmission structures should be set back 100' from the edge of the ROW. That only seems like common sense -- and common safety. Responsible utility developers use the wire zone - border zone model, and FERC now recommends that it incorporate fall-in data to ensure safety and reliability.* (Well before FERC's new guideline, the first high voltage direct current line, in western New Hampshire, observed this common sense precaution when it constructed the line in the early 1990's.)

Now go back and watch the Deerfield video again. Presuming that the ROW is fully cleared, tall trees abut the easement. There is no fall-in hazard for the existing power line. But if Northern Pass tries to crowd its new transmission facilities onto this easement, the structures would have to be within the fall-in zone. FERC would conclude that the current PSNH ROW is not wide enough for the safe addition of a new high voltage transmission line.

There are countless examples like this along PSNH's 140-mile existing ROW. One of the more egregious instances occurs in Easton, Lincoln, and Woodstock. Northern Pass proposes to construct two new high voltage lines -- one with 110' poles and the other with 120' towers -- within a 150' width bordered by tall white pines. This will give "tree-hugging" a new definition.

The Deerfield video exposes a fatal flaw in what Northern Pass proposes up and down the narrow PSNH ROW. It's not a question of whether the Deerfield family's house is 16' or 20' from the ROW. It is a much more fundamental question of whether Northern Pass should construct new transmission facilities at all on this ROW.

FERC says no. Before it was prohibited from using eminent domain to seize more land adjacent to PSNH's ROW, Northern Pass agreed that PSNH's easement was too narrow. Northern Pass had planned to use eminent domain to expand the Deerfield ROW as well as those in twelve other communities. Now that it cannot seize the extra land that it needs, Northern Pass apparently plans to proceed full steam ahead anyway and simply overburden the ROW with towers of much greater heights but still insufficient set backs.

The Forest Society is correct. As proposed, Northern Pass would hurt New Hampshire families, whether or not they live next to the ROW. It would overload PSNH's narrow easements and threaten health, safety, and the reliability of the entire electrical grid. Tree-hugging transmission lines are a recipe for disaster in the next big ice, snow or wind storm. FERC has issued the warning.

Don't be fooled if Northern Pass says that it will follow applicable industry standards and requirements concerning the placement of towers on easements. Northern Pass would be referring to the National Electrical Safety Code (NESC). NESC standards concern only the necessary clearances between conductors (live wires) and stationary objects, not the necessary clearances between live wires crowded close to the edge of the ROW and the trees than can fall in upon them from outside the ROW. NESC rules do not include the "real time" safety provisions that FERC is now recommending in its effort to insure the planning of new transmission lines that do not threaten the reliability of the entire grid.

Of course, none of this would pertain if Northern Pass buried the lines. Underground "light" cables do not require much clearance space, and this innovative technology is the answer for developers who want to add new lines to already overcrowded ROWs. The technology exists now to build new high voltage transmission lines that would not harm New Hampshire's families, environment, and economy. Maine, Vermont, and New York will all be using this underground technology. It is widely used in Europe, which has the same crowded conditions for utilities as New England does. Why would New Hampshire accept any less?

If you are concerned about the safety and reliability of the new high voltage power line that Northern Pass proposes to add to PSNH's narrow ROW, you may tell the lead regulatory agency, the Department of Energy, to look into the matter here.

Ask political candidates for NH offices if they are aware of FERC's new guidelines and what they are doing to support and expedite the work of the new study commission to bury high voltage power lines in state transportation corridors.

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*A study commissioned by FERC in 2004 reached the same conclusion:
 "The ideal transmission line route would be one where vegetation would not grow or fall into the facilities, given reasonable and ongoing maintenance. While this may not be realistic with many lines, it can and should be an objective for the siting of future lines." [Emphases added.]

Meet the "New" Coos Route

Posted by Responsible Energy Action LLC on June 20, 2012 and reprinted with permission here.

Meet the "New" Coos Route: Same as the Old Route

by

Responsible Energy Action LLC

Northern Pass’s purchase of zig-zagging strips of land does not constitute community support, does not represent good siting for a transmission line, and does not address the massive problems created by this proposed project. Like the old route, the new Coos route is all about money for PSNH, Northeast Utilities, and Hydro Quebec, not about what is good for New Hampshire. Like the old route, the new route was developed in complete secrecy with no consultation of key stakeholders. And like the old route, the new route sticks New Hampshire with the Northeast’s only proposed transmission project to use antiquated, visually jarring, and health-threatening overhead technology.

There has been a lot of talk about Northern Pass’s new route recently. It was fueled last month by Northeast Utilities’s First Quarter 2012 earnings conference call. Leon J. Olivier, NU’s Chief Operating Officer and PSNH’s Chief Executive Officer, characterized his “conviction level” as “very confident” that Northern Pass would announce its proposed new route through Coos County in the third quarter of the year.

It’s not hard to figure out the route that Northern Pass is trying buy up across northern Coos County. A search of the registry for land acquisitions by Northern Pass affiliate, Renewable Properties, Inc., and first-hand reports from alarmed landowners reveal the patchwork collection of parcels that Northern Pass has purchased so far. But the known dots from Pittsburg east to Clarksville and Stewartstown still do not connect into a solid line. And beyond that series of dots, the new route would have to snake its way further east into Dixville, then south through Millsfield and Dummer. From Dummer, it  must reverse course and follow an expanded Coos Loop west to get back to Lost Nation (Groveton).

Representations of a “high level of confidence” to investors notwithstanding, REAL does not believe that Northern Pass will assemble a complete route from Quebec across the New Hampshire border to Lost Nation or to Whitefield by September. Northern Pass may announce a route by September, but we doubt that it will own all the land and rights required to build the project on that route. The major reason for our doubt is that Northern Pass continues to underestimate the resolve of the land owners who have bravely refused to sell their land for this project. There are many courageous northern Coos County landowners holding fast against enormous pressure; they value their heritage and environment more than all of the Hydro Quebec dollars stuffed into Northern Pass’s war chest.

Northern Pass’s land agents are desperately trying to fulfill Olivier’s prediction.  They have had to resort to pressure tactics, including morally repugnant efforts to pay relatives of the heroic landowners to convince them to sell out to Northern Pass and give their land over to the use and control of Hydro Quebec.  But as one land owner has recently written, “material things rust and wear out. Money is soon spent for brief periods of pleasure. Land on the other hand is something that can be passed from one generation to another with many valuable accounts. . . .This is what I choose to leave my children and grandchildren. This is what I am fighting for, to keep protected from this foreign invasion, a project of pure greed, not need!”

Substantively, however, it will not matter even if Northern Pass is somehow able to connect the dots this summer and weave its new route back and forth across Coos County. The new route will still be the same as the old route, if not worse.

REAL will answer three questions here:

• What you can expect to hear in the press release if Northern Pass is ever able to patch together the new route;
• Why the “new” route will be the same as the “old” route, if not worse;
• Why New Hampshire is being targeted for an antiquated overhead transmission line while neighboring states benefit from modern underground technologies.

What You Can Expect to Hear

Let’s accept Olivier’s “3^rd Quarter” prediction for the moment. What might the announcement look like later this summer? Undoubtedly, Northern Pass will spin stories of community support and cooperative landowners.  They will try to charm us with folksy accounts of their sensitivity to family history and culture.  They will tell us that they have great community relations teams who have soothed all the unrest in the North Country except for a few noisy “special interest groups.”  They will say that the new route has the support of the communities involved—meaning the “underlying landowners.” Above all else, they will assure us that this route is the most environmentally responsible path they could possibly take from the Canadian border to Lost Nation.  And the harder they work to sell this story, the more obvious it will be that it is a complete fabrication. The much anticipated “new route” is the same as the disastrous old route, if not worse.

A Bad Idea Never Gets Better

The “new route” is frighteningly similar to the old route.  The old route was almost universally hated because it destroyed property values, threatened health and safety, and ruined the untouched open spaces that feed the most significant remaining industry in Coos County:  tourism.  The new route will be equally detested for the same reasons. The old route was rejected by every community that it passed through. The new route will evoke the same community condemnation. The old route represented the most expedient way to get Hydro Quebec’s power through Coos County on its way to Boston.  The new route will represent the next most expedient “extension cord.” The old route ran along a take-no-prisoners north-south line from Pittsburg to Lost Nation because it was predicated on the availability of eminent domain authority. After it traverses east across Coos County, the new route may also request eminent domain authority for the final leg that reverses course and strikes due west on the Coos Loop to Lost Nation.

So, what is different about the new route? It’s longer. Once it snakes its way east, then south, and then west back to Lost Nation along the Coos Loop, through Stark, the new route threatens to add up to 50% more clear cut ROWs than the old route. Moreover, it threatens to add up to 50% more visually jarring towers that destroy property values; up to 50% longer transmission lines that threaten health and safety; and up to 50% more negative impact on the tourism industry. Another difference is that the new route will almost certainly try to clear cut a new wide swath through the White Mountain National Forest in Stark, destroying more majestic vistas.


That’s it.  The new route is nothing more than the old route but longer, more detrimental to public land that has been preserved for its scenic value and more damaging to private land and businesses.
Does the new route form the least environmentally damaging way through Coos County?  Does it provide us with the least visual impact from transmission lines and towers up to 140’?  Is it that the new route attracts the most community support?  Does it provide the most separation from residents, who fear proximity to High Voltage Transmission Lines? Does it incorporate the results of honest consultation and open dialogue with the real stakeholders, especially the agencies and conservation groups that serve as stewards of preserved land in Coos County and the town governments, which speak for the majority of the actual residents of Coos County?

No.  The new route does none of these.  As the new route took shape, it became a cynical game of connecting the dots in which socioeconomic and environmental impacts simply never mattered:  each parcel was just a piece in a puzzle.  There was no consideration of wetlands, habitats, scenery, history, community, culture, or safety.  There was no consultation about the new route with conservation agencies or with towns. Indeed, Northern Pass has pursued the new route in complete silence and utmost secrecy with individual sellers, often non-residents, whom they prohibited from discussing transactions. Abutting neighbors and communities were left to worry whether their land and livelihoods would be impacted. There was never any effort to work with stakeholders to design the best technology. The sole consideration for the new route was land acquisition — location and price. Could the parcel fit into the patchwork route? What was the asking price? And in time, price no longer mattered. Outrageous sums were offered. The new route emerged as the sum of the parcels that Northern Pass could string together and buy outright with its virtually unlimited funds from Hydro Quebec. When Northern Pass was blocked from using eminent domain to seize the old route, it did not take the message to heart and consult with stakeholders; instead, it opened up its war chest and tried to buy the next most expedient route.

Northern Pass is busy inventing stories of caring land agents who were sensitive to individual’s concerns.  They are creating tales of landowners selling easements for the good of their communities.  They are finding ways to pretend that they considered the economic, cultural, and environmental impacts of their chosen route.  The truth is that they did absolutely nothing of the sort.  They looked at Coos County as a business problem:  what do we need to do to get from the Canadian border to Groveton and how much will it cost?  As they purchased parcels, adjoining parcels became more valuable to them – while non-adjoining parcels became worthless to them. Too bad for you if your property value plummets because your land was not needed. Too bad for you if Northern Pass hired your relatives to harass you into selling your land. In the end, money and pressure tactics prevailed.  Keep all this in mind if you ever hear Northern Pass’s narrative of community support, landowner cooperation and environmental sensitivity. It’s nothing more than self-serving rubbish.

Why Is New Hampshire Being Exploited?

This leads to the final question:  When it comes to efforts to link Boston/Hartford/NYC with Canadian power, why does New Hampshire get the short end of the stick, suffering with the only proposal for tall above-ground towers and 150’ to 425’ wide clear cut rights of way running through the most scenic and treasured landscapes we have, including the White Mountain National Forest?  In contrast, there are two other new HVDC transmission line proposals that would connect Boston/Hartford/NYC with Canadian power via HVDC transmission lines:  one in Maine called the “Northeast Energy Link”; the other in Vermont and New York called the “Champlain Hudson Power Express.”  Both of these HVDC projects in our neighboring states have been planned as underground and underwater projects with no overhead towers and transmission lines.

Why is New Hampshire alone being exploited?  Is it because we have a weak and compliant regulatory environment?  Is it because we have a revolving door that allows former employees of NU or its affiliates who have NU pensions and other conflicts to become PUC commissioners and to rule on any and all proceedings in which NU has an interest?  Is it because we have a revolving door that allows a powerful law firm representing Northern Pass to hire the retiring Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission? Is it because we have political donations that are regularly made by NU officials and lobbyists to key politicians in Washington and Concord?  Whether or not the actual answers to these questions are all affirmative, the public perception is that each and every one of the above reasons explains why the NU/Northern Pass/Hydro Quebec cabal dares to bully New Hampshire.

The new Coos route – just more of the same, but longer. Bad ideas never get any better. There’s no more reason for New Hampshire to accept the route this time than there was last time.

Note: for more information on the new route, see this post from the Conservation Law Foundation.

Stewartstown Warns Quebec that Efforts to Buy Land in Coos County Threaten Trade and Tourist Relationships

On May 16, 2012, the Select Board of Stewartstown NH wrote to Quebec's Premier Jean Charest with copies to the Chair of the Board of Hydro Quebec and to the President and CEO of Hydro Quebec.

The Stewartstown Selectmen told Premier Charest in no uncertain terms that it finds Northern Pass's efforts to buy up land for a transmission line through Stewartstown "reprehensible" and contrary to the town's wishes as expressed in a March 13, 2012, town meeting directive that bans any future construction of above ground high voltage transmission lines within the town's borders.

Stewartstown reminds Premier Charest that Hydro-Quebec states on its own website that its projects must be "favorably received" by host communities. Opposition to Northern Pass by host communities is patently widespread, Stewartstown continues. Why, then, is Hydro-Quebec still supporting and promoting such a project?

Is Stewartstown to conclude that the "proponents of Northern Pass, including the Province of Quebec, cannot be trusted to keep their word"?

The letter closes by reaffirming the history of good trade and tourist relationships between the town and the province and the common heritage of many Stewartstown residents and citizens of Quebec. The ill-conceived Northern Pass project is causing "serious damage" to these longstanding ties. The Selectmen call upon Charest to intervene and correct the situation.

The full text of the letter is here.

The Door Continues to Revolve at the PUC

Former PUC Chair Thomas Getz has moved on to a new job. Guess where.



On April 20, 2012, the Concord NH law firm, Devine Millimet, announced the addition of a new member of counsel: Thomas B. Getz, Esq. Attorney Getz now chairs the firm's energy and regulatory affairs group. Devine Millimet is one of Northern Pass's law firms. Getz's new colleagues include Dana Bisbee, attorney and shareholder, who threatened the Tillotson trustees with litigation for not selling to Northern Pass. Another Devine Millimet attorney and shareholder, Ovide Lamontagne, is also the Republican gubernatorial candidate with a Northern Pass reticence.

A week after his new appointment was announced, Getz was on his way to Washington, D.C., to testify to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources concerning storm outages over the last four years. Based on his experiences in New Hampshire as PUC commissioner and chair from 2008 to 2011, Getz reportedly asserted that utilities have become "more adept at planning for, responding to and recovering from extreme weather events that cause widespread electrical outages." Those who were in the dark for weeks after the Hallowe'en nor'Easter might disagree.

(A month later, May 31, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation found the real culprit for the historic October 2011 outages. The FERC-NERC report blames it on the trees and recommends more aggressive "vegetation management" -- tree cutting -- especially of so-called danger or hazard trees outside utility easements on private land. Call it eminent-domain-by-vegetation-management and expect to see the utilities pushing for the right to cut down trees outside their ROWs to safeguard your electric supply.)

As PUC chair, Getz first attracted the attention of the Northern Pass Opposition when Responsible Energy Action LLC (REAL) discovered that he had taken an official, public position in favor of Northern Pass in a filing with a regional organization. "How on earth could the chairman of the PUC say Northern Pass is a done deal when his agency is going to make critical make-or-break decisions about the project in the future and when . . . there have been no state proceedings or even any state filings involving Northern Pass?" REAL asked.

Getz again came to the attention of Northern Pass opponents during confirmation hearings for a new PUC commissioner, Michael Harrington. Like Harrington, Commissioner Getz had also previously worked for PSNH or an affiliate and received or was eligible for a pension from the same while he regulated them. The PUC brushed it all aside and confirmed Harrington partly on the basis that Getz provided a precedent.

Getz's career trajectory is not uncommon in New Hampshire. Witness Harrington. It's all legal, apparently. But is it right? Does it produce the best energy decisions and policies for the state?

As one Concord Monitor reader commented, New Hampshire's energy regulation and policy-making reeks with "insider stench."

As voters question and consider candidates for every legislative seat, for executive council, and for governor in the coming months, this matter should be front and center. You could start by asking candidates if they would support modernizing the PUC appointment process, as other states have done.