The Eleventh Hour

Recent meetings, growing skepticism, and two letters by Tom Mullen





PSNH informational meetings are starting to wind down in Coos and Grafton Counties. Since the earliest sessions in late October and early November, audiences have become increasingly negative and skeptical about the entire process. According to the Valley News, in last night's info meeting in Lebanon concerning the proposed alternate route through the Upper Connecticut valley towns of Haverhill, Piermont, Orford, and Dorchester, "environmentalists and land owners . . . reacted with dismay." Haverhill Town Manager Glenn English called the Northern Pass a "blight" that's going to have "no direct benefit" to the North Country. Despite PSNH's rhetoric of inclusion and "input," English feels that local communities will have little actual role in decision making once the regulatory merry-go-round starts up. Orford resident Sally Tomlinson commented that it almost looks like "games" are being played in attempting to pit preferred and alternate routes--and towns--against one another.

Faith in the process is now so low that no one was likely to believe PSNH spokesperson Allison McLean last night when she claimed that "we're kind of at step one of a marathon here." That talking point was echoed this morning on NHPR when PSNH's Martin Murray insisted that there's plenty of time for public "input" since we're only at mile three of a marathon. Few people are lulled into complacency by this talking point. Most of us realize that we're at the eleventh hour in terms of PSNH's efforts to capture the one thing that it must have to bypass public opposition, eminent domain. If PSNH has not already done so, it will likely soon make an end run around public opposition by getting a purchase agreement for some nominal amount of power from Hydro-Quebec, thereby claiming that it is a public utility not a private merchant transmission line. The next step would be to apply to the NH Public Utilities Commission for public utility status and thereby garner the privilege of taking our land by eminent domain.

At another meeting last night, one organized by and for the opposition in North Woodstock, Ray D'Amante came up from Concord to express solidarity with the North Country and to reiterate that it's the eleventh hour. Anyone who thinks that we are only at McLean's step one or Murray's mile three will be left in the starting blocks as PSNH crosses the finish line and the North Country's fate is sealed.

How do you get in the race to save the North Country? Write to your elected officials, to Senator Gallus, Governor Lynch, Senator Shaheen. Persist. Tom Mullen wrote to Senator Gallus on January 20 and again on January 21. With Tom, don't settle for "no position" as an answer from the people we elect to exercise leadership on our behalf.

Contact info for Grafton County elected officials is here.
Contact info for Coos County elected officials is here.


Bury the Northern Pass, a group of concerned citizens in Grafton County, participates in the No Northern Pass Coalition. To join the email list, write to burynorthernpass@gmail.com.

What is Merchant Transmission and Why Should You Care? (Part 1)

Part 1 of a two-part blog.




Many people reading this blog are old enough to view their power company as an extension of state government that acts under regulation to serve the public by keeping the lights on at the lowest possible price. Power companies were never, in fact, so beneficent, but the words “public,” “service,” and “New Hampshire” in a dull but reassuring name like “PSNH” at least suggest as much. We gave them a certain amount of deference and respect because they were serving us, the public, and they knew what was best for us. To a degree, we tolerated their intrusions because they were acting in the public interest; in particular, we gave them the power of eminent domain to take private land when it served the greater good. Because of the stigma, we never associated the “s” word (socialism) with this collectivization, but the resemblance is obvious.

Now out of the blue comes the “Northern Pass,” and the name alone suggests something other than a public utility.  It evokes the fabled and much sought-after Northwest Passage, even though that is a route through the Canadian arctic seas, not the mountains, and in northern New Hampshire we call them notches, not passes anyway. Suddenly we went from bureaucratic, geographical public utility names like “PSNH” and “Northeast Utilities” to a mythical, nowhere name like “Northern Pass” evidently conjured up by a flatlander advertising firm as a sales pitch.

This apparent need to “sell” the Northern Pass points directly to what has happened in the electricity business.  There are now “merchant” ventures in generation and transmission, private free-lancers, so to speak, who must compete with one another in order to stay in business. To the winner go the spoils, and in the transmission business, the spoils to investors, stockholders, are huge profits.  The losers are “disincentivized,” weeded out. This is capitalism at its finest. It’s the American way.

The Northern Pass is one such merchant transmission project.  (Never mind that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, has just invented a new term solely for Northern Pass, "cost-based participant funded transmission line”; the concept is the same, it’s private.) Northern Pass is supposed to sell itself to us if it is to succeed and reward its shareholders. Hence the public relations push and the fancy albeit inappropriate name. If it fails to sell itself, it is supposed to go out of business.

There’s nothing wrong with “selling” one’s product, but ultimately the product must stand on its own merits, not on the advertising.  It has become increasingly clear that the Northern Pass project lacks public merit; it’s wrong for the White Mountains, a bad deal for all of New Hampshire. How many editorials, opinion pieces, news releases by elected officials, conservation and outdoor groups, business leaders, private individuals have made that point now? Their collective weight should bring the project down sooner or later if capitalism works as capitalism should. 

But the elephant in the room is eminent domain, the privilege we grant to entities to take private land. Should we give a private corporation like Northern Pass the privilege that we have traditionally bestowed upon public utilities? If Northern Pass can’t sell its product to New Hampshire on its own merits, should this private company then be allowed to take our land in order to succeed and to reward its investors anyway? Should a losing capitalist venture be shored up with a socialist prop like eminent domain? Can you spell "bailout"?

With more and more merchant transmission projects popping up in the United States, this question has come to the forefront recently. In Part 2 of this blog, we’ll look at the answers given recently by the states of New York and Montana, no and no again.

Bury the Northern Pass, a group of concerned citizens in Grafton County, belongs to the No Northern Pass Coalition. To join the email list, write to burynorthernpass@gmail.com.