Northern Pass's Monthly Allowance for December 2010: $1,093,080.00

A look at how much Hydro-Quebec is spending on developing the Northern Pass project right now.



How much did you earn last month? Never mind, you'd probably rather not think about it these days. Per capita monthly income in Coos County in 1999, the latest U.S. census data available, was $1,435. Median monthly household income in Coos in 2008 was $3,566, under $900 per week.

How much did the Northern Pass spend on development in December 2010 alone? $1,093,080. Over a million dollars in a single month! $200,000 went for legal; $72,000 for environmental; $465,00 for routing analysis and preliminary engineering; $50,000 for real estate services; $25,000 for corporate communications and community outreach; $62,200 for miscellaneous; $224,100 for NPT labor.

The PSNH folks running all over the North Country holding meetings in December to inform us about the power line were probably billed under "NPT labor."  The people knocking on our doors wanting us to sign ROE agreements were "real estate services." The new "community relations specialist" was actually a "real estate service," but he was probably billed under NPT labor too.What were those Northern Pass lawyers doing to bill $10,000 a day in December? I wonder how much the Northern Pass blogger earned last month.

Northern Pass's December 2010 development spending is just the tip of the iceberg. Between January 2009 and March 2011, development costs will total $16M. And that's a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the project, $1.2B.

Who's really footing the bill for all this spending to push an HVDC power line through New Hampshire? Hydro-Quebec, ultimately, the province of Quebec. PSNH is merely the face of the project we meet in our town hall meetings and at our front doors; Hydro-Quebec silently bankrolls it. Buried in the middle of the massive Transmission Service Agreement (TSA) that Northern Pass has publicly filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency (FERC) is the agreement letter that spells it out.

So, while your household was struggling to get by on under $900 per week (2008 Coos median), Northern Pass was allowed to spend $273,000 a week in December. Apples and oranges? Yes. But have no doubt that the more Northern Pass gets to spend on developing the power line project, the greater the danger that your household in northern New Hampshire will have to get along on even less in the future. To quote Deb Reynolds, District 2 state Senator 2006-2010, "the Hydro Quebec/Northern Pass project will ultimately serve to drive the nail in the coffin of what is left of the economy of the North Country."

A company with the vast financial resources of Hydro-Quebec has the money to bury the line if it wants to ship its power down to the greater Boston area through New Hampshire. Could it be any clearer? New York State figured it out. New Hampshire has too.

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.

The Southern Pass?

Today's Concord Monitor carries an article by Tara Ballenger concerning the 28 miles of new right-of-way that the Northern Pass may have to cut in the Concord NH area.

Power plan has local connection

By Tara Ballenger

Created 01/21/2011 - 00:00

Concord Monitor 

Scope of impact depends on FAA

The Northern Pass project by Northeast Utilities and Hydro Quebec might require cutting as much as 28 miles of new right of way in the southern half of the state. How much - if any - hinges largely on the project getting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to build the towers next to existing lines around Concord's airport, according to Northeast Utilities.

Officials and residents in Concord and neighboring towns are saying they aren't necessarily opposed to the project, which would bring 1,200 megawatts of electricity through 140 miles of high-voltage power lines from Canada to a converter station in Franklin, and then to Deerfield to be piped into the regional power grid. But those who are in the path of the proposed routes are voicing their concerns about clearing new rights of way to build them.

Worries about how transmission lines would affect property values, scenic views and the environment, echo sentiments heard in the North Country, where the proposal of 40 new miles of right of way has sparked significant protest.

"I'm not happy with it at all. I spent my life getting this chunk of land together, and it wasn't to give them a route to run their power lines though," said James Haggett of Pembroke.

Haggett and his wife, Linda, attended a selectmen's meeting in the town Monday. At the meeting, representatives from the project explained that if the FAA doesn't grant Northeast Utilities permission to build towers, which would range in height from 90 to 135 feet, near existing lines around Concord Municipal Airport, a swath of land just over 8 miles long and 150 feet wide may need to be cut through Concord, Pembroke and Chichester to avoid the airport.

"We're waiting for them to give us the determination so we can move forward," said Brian Bosse, project manager for the Northern Pass project, which submitted an application in late October.

Representatives for the project told people at the Pembroke meeting that they hope to hear back from the FAA in the coming weeks, said Martin Murray, spokesman for Public Service of New Hampshire, which is owned by Northeast Utilities. He said his estimate is based on how long the FAA has taken to make decisions about obstructions near airports in the past.

"We're as eager as the residents to find out," said Murray, who added that Northeast Utilities prefers to use the existing right of way by the airport if it's possible. "But I can't tell you what they're going to do."

The lines in the current right of way around Concord - including the lines around the airport - vary in height from 48 to 88 feet, so the new towers, which would be built next to the old ones, may represent a considerable increase in height.

No one at the FAA could address the specifics of the project's application for approval, but a spokesperson said that if the plans involve building towers high enough and close enough to the runway, aircraft will have to alter angles or directions to land safely and the approval process will involve significant research as well as the input of several arms of the administration.

The eight miles of new right of way would cut through undeveloped private land in the Broken Ground area of Concord north of Route 393 in Concord, and in north Pembroke and south Chichester between Plausawa and Garvin Hills. It would cut through 54 separate land parcels, most of them residential, Murray said.

"It's going to be a massive scar across the entire face of that mountain, which is very visible from the west looking east," said Raymond D'Amante, referencing the impact to the hills. D'Amante is a Concord-based attorney who will represent several Penacook and Chichester residents in upcoming Department of Energy hearings about the project and other meetings.

"More important is the impact on the properties that will be taken as well as the hundreds of properties that will not be taken but will still have the towers in their yards or just beyond their yards. They are massive steel towers" that are well over twice as high as the normal wood power lines people are used to seeing in that area," he said, adding that several historic properties, including homesteads dating to the 1700s in Chichester, will be affected.

Read the remainder of the article and see the route map here.


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

What is Merchant Transmission? (Part 2)

New York tightened up eminent domain laws to block a Canada-based corporation from erecting an aerial HVDC line across upstate New York to NYC.

In March 2006, Canada-based New York Regional Interconnect Inc. (NYRI) sought state approval to erect a 190-mile aerial HVDC transmission line from Marcy, New York to the outskirts of New York City. It was to ship a massive amount of power generated by upstate big hydro sources south to the energy-hungry metropolitan area. Its route would have ripped through thirty seven towns and villages and countless farms and then down through the Catskills and the historic Hudson River valley. The line was to be private, a merchant transmission venture.

In April 2009, NYRI withdrew its application. The earliest and most important reasons for this withdrawal were, first, public opposition and, subsequently, legislative action to tighten New York’s eminent domain laws in response to the new player in the utilities industry, merchant ventures.

The opposition formed immediately and organized effectively. The basis of the opposition to NYRI sounds familiar to us in New Hampshire—the havoc that this long distance aerial HVDC line would wreak on people, communities, the environment, the economy, historical and cultural resources, not to mention that big hydro is brown not green power. Rural upstate New York would have borne an additional burden to keep the lights burning all night more cheaply down in the City: its electricity rates would have increased.

Grass roots opposition led to legislative action. Two upstate legislators drafted a bill to amend New York’s Transportation Corporations Law to prohibit gas and electric merchant transmission corporations from using eminent domain in New York if the construction increased rates in any part of the state and if the corporation did not receive early designation as a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. “No eminent domain for corporations” became the rallying cry for the opposition.

In October 2006, New York Governor Pataki signed the bill into law. It was the death knell for NYRI. Unable to take people’s land by eminent domain, NYRI had to compete on its own merits as a private business. It foundered, cost estimates rose, FERC balked, and Canadian investors cooled. Investors delivered the coup de grace at lunch on April 3, 2009, informing NYRI that they were pulling out.

One of the architects of the regional effort to block NYRI, state Senator Joseph A. Griffo, remarked that “NYRI was nothing more than a group of investors trying to make money while ruining our environment and putting the health and safety of thousands of people at risk. They tried to end run the process, they tried to jam this project down our throats.” The NYRI project was “the effort of a foreign company to run roughshod over the lives, homes, and communities of Central New York.” U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer confirmed that the three-year ordeal was over for the opposition.“Ding Dong the witch is dead,” the Senator remarked.

Predictably, New York City Mayor Bloomberg decried Gov. Pataki’s tightening of the state’s eminent domain law to block NYRI’s merchant transmission line. He cited the benefits to the city of the new line and recent power breakdowns in Astoria and Westchester County. Despite Bloomberg’s fuming over the death of NYRI, the sky didn’t fall in, the lights continued to burn all night in the city.

In fact, another Canadian group soon emerged with another plan to send hydro power down to the city from Quebec, but there is at least one critical difference. This time, the line, 420 miles long, will run underground—under Lake Champlain and the Hudson River and, for 70 miles, under land. It’s the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE). Four six-inch diameter cables are to be buried three feet below water in a narrow trench carved out by air jets from a robot. The developers of this project hope to avoid the opposition that led to the tightening of eminent domain laws against merchant ventures and to the death of NYRI.

Environmental groups have not weighed in on the effects of CHPE, and surely impacts exist. But it is fair to say that by modernizing its eminent domain legislation for the era of deregulation, New York warded off a disastrous aerial project and gave itself a chance to attract investors offering a better deal. Theoretically, that is how capitalism is supposed to work. Remove the socialist prop of eminent domain from a private corporation trying to force a bad deal on rural communities and a better deal comes along.

New Hampshire would do well to follow suit.

Bury the Northern Pass, a group of concerned citizens, is a member of the No Northern Pass Coalition. To join the email list, write to burynorthernpass@gmail.com