Hydro-Québec can afford to bury Northern Pass - editorial

  "We cannot afford to see a state entity act as the stooge of a foreign company’s record profits."

Coos County Democrat and Littleton Courier editorial (October 28, 2015)

Hydro-Québec can afford to bury Northern Pass

Éric Martel, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hydro-Québec, must really enjoy life. While planning to build and pay for Northern Pass, the nearly 200 miles of power lines through New Hampshire, Martel’s company has posted hefty profits. On the Hydro-Québec website, Martel rightfully referred to 2014 as "a remarkable year." Certainly, a $3.4 billion profit and $2.5 billion dividend to shareholders qualifies as remarkable.

Good news keeps getting better for Hydro-Québec, which is owned by the province’s government. For 2015, the company’s financials remain stellar. Profit for the first six months of this year exceeded $2 billion. Congratulations to Hydro-Québec for following up a remarkable year with an absolutely amazing six months. Counting the first half of this year, Hydro-Québec’s profits since the start of 2011, shortly after Northern Pass was originally proposed, were just under $12 billion, or about $7,250,000 each day. Even after converting the company’s figures to American dollars, the profit remains rather large.


With all the dollars flying around, why is Hydro-Québec hesitant to use some of those record profits over the next four years, the anticipated timeframe to build Northern Pass, to pay for complete burial of the transmission line?


Northern Pass, a partnership between Hydro-Québec and New England power supplier Eversource, recently filed an application with the state’s Site Evaluation Committee. A decision on the controversial proposal will take about a year. Northern Pass seems to have new momentum after agreeing in August to bury 52 more miles of line. A step in the right direction, for sure, but the total proposed amount of buried lines is less than one-third of the project’s length.


Beyond the $1.6 billion Northern Pass anticipates to spend on the proposed route, with 60 miles of underground lines, the cost to fully bury the project would likely be less than one year of Hydro-Québec’s profit. Trees and views in Coös County, where most of the transmission towers would be visible, matter as much as land around the White Mountains, the area benefiting from the August decision to bury more lines.


Dedicated residents have testified about how the tall towers of Northern Pass would diminish the joy our land provides. Hopefully Mr. Martel and Northern Pass can forgive the people of the North Country who believe our forests are more remarkable than a foreign monopoly’s balance sheet. Beloved scenery and the wonders of nature - not a Canadian company’s quest for more profit - make life grand in New Hampshire.


If Hydro-Québec wants to add to its financial success by sending energy down the Northern Pass route, the company needs to pay for total line burial. That might complicate construction and push the start time for the project back. So be it. New Hampshire is worth the wait.


Regardless of how beneficial nearly 1,100 megawatts of power would be for the regional electric grid, the business partners in two countries who proposed Northern Pass need to answer a question. Why won’t Hydro-Québec divert some of its mighty profits to bury the entire project?


Even the angriest critic of Northern Pass must admit that the project’s leaders have respectfully heard many people express their doubts about the power line. Perhaps the Site Evaluation Committee will hear us even better. They need to. They must. We cannot afford to see a state entity act as the stooge of a foreign company’s record profits.

 

"A Devastating Blow to Northern Pass" - Op Ed

Coös County Democrat (July 29, 2015)
Littleton Courier (July 29, 2015)
Plymouth Record Enterprise (July 30, 2015)

Editorial Opinion

 A devastating blow to Northern Pass

 On July 21, a major victory was won for those who oppose Northern Pass. The five-year process leading to the project’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) ended wih the U.S. Department of Energy releasing the long awaited document. The department concluded that the proposal for nearly 180 miles of huge electricity towers would damage our tourist economy and the great views that make life in the North Country a continuous treat.

The DEIS suggested several alternative routes for Northern Pass, the PSNH/Eversource proposal to bring HydroQuebec power to the New England grid using, almost exclusively, mammoth transmission towers through New Hampshire. Because of the dreadful visual impact from the tall towers, many alternatives in the DEIS call for underground lines, as so many people from Northern New Hampshire have suggested for years. We were speaking, but Northern Pass was not listening.

 Northern Pass issued statements about the DEIS. Totally avoiding how the DEIS hurts the project’s momentum, the statements focus on the need for additional energy and how the Northern Pass permitting process will continue. Interestingly, Northern Pass credits the input received from citizens about the project. Nowhere has Northern Pass acknowledged the major strategic error in its continuing reluctance to consider what has clearly become the only option that stands any chance of winning the support of the North Country — burying the lines.

Noting the energy crisis New England faces, recent statements from Northern Pass imply our state would benefit from the extra supply and the subsequent lower costs. Yet, the project’s benefit to New Hampshire’s electricity consumers has never been clear. As far as lowering our high power rates, Northern Pass meekly states, "We continue to believe that Northern Pass is an important part of the answer." They just cannot seem to accept that the fat cats in two countries trying to push Northern Pass on us never bothered to ask whether residents of our region love our precious land, trees, and views. Generations of people here know the answer, and we do not need a corporate monstrosity looking to spoil our state while lecturing us on the need for new energy sources.

The DEIS notes how burying the lines would double the cost to build Northern Pass, but would also double the number of construction jobs compared to above ground lines. How Northern Pass responds to that fact will be interesting to see. Also, the DEIS found, towns most affected by the proposed overhead lines would gain the least amount of property tax revenue from the Northern Pass infrastructure that would weave its way through towns from Pittsburg south.

 Many people deserve credit for ensuring the DEIS captured the brutal devastation Northern Pass would bring to our region. Landowners turned away millions by refusing to sell their land to Northern Pass, devoted residents took many trips to Concord and elsewhere to find out more and have their voices heard, and people made the orange protest color central to their wardrobe.

 The final battle has not been won, but the above ground towers cannot realistically happen because of the big slap to the face the U.S. Department of Energy delivered to Eversource and HydroQuebec last week. This major victory belongs to us all. Thanks and congratulations to those who made such a triumph possible

Northern Pass's Visual Impacts on 47 NH Towns

Zone of Visual Influence (ZVI) Maps

The Department of Energy (DOE) and New Hampshire Department of Historical Resources (NHDHR) are conducting a mandated federal Section 106 review of Northern Pass's impacts on historical resources.

Until recently, this review has not been available to the general public. On June 17, 2015, Governor Hassan requested that DOE post review documents, as well as NHDHR's preliminary comments, on the Northern Pass Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) site as soon as possible. NHDHR concurred that the public's interest demanded it. A redacted version is now available online to the public as "NH Division of Historical Resources – Project Area Form Review."

This redacted version includes "Sketch Maps" for the Section 106 review prepared by TJ Boyle, a DOE subcontractor for the EIS. The base "Sketch Maps" show the "zones of visual influence" within the "area of potential effect" (APE) along the full 187-mile length of the proposed project.

The general public may now view this viewshed analysis online; links follow at the end of this blog.

The viewshed analysis is designed for the Section 106 assessment of impacts on historical resources, not for landowners who wish to assess visual impacts on their own properties. Nevertheless, the maps serve as a limited preview of what landowners can expect from Northern Pass as currently proposed.

Another such preview is offered in the Appalachian Mountain Club's earlier visual impact assessment and flyover video. This assessment is based upon 2012 tower heights and will be updated. (See "Methodology" in the VIA for a discussion of data used to compose the videos. Links to the eleven fly over videos are included below to correspond to the Section 106 Sketch Maps.)

For the 106 review, DOE and NHDHR have decided to consider one mile either side of the center of the proposed transmission line as the APE.* (The 2012 AMC fly over videos show a wider APE.)

The zones are color coded to represent how many towers would be visible from a given location within the APE. White: 0 towers. Yellow: 1 to 5 towers. Green: 6-10 towers. Orange: 11-20 towers. Red: 21-40 towers. Burgundy: over 41 towers.

Conditions are leaf-on.

“Surface” viewsheds for all but the immediate APE include the screening effects of objects over 7 ft (2.1 m) in height (leaf-on tree conditions, buildings, etc.). Thus, should a currently forested area be cleared or drop its leaves, its viewshed could be impacted.

Following is an example of visual impacts within the APE along Streeter Pond Road in Sugar Hill. The shaded area outlined in black represents the APE. Impacts within the APE range from 0-5 towers (white, yellow) through 40+ towers (burgundy) in leaf-on conditions. Visual impacts beyond the 1-mile APE certainly exist in given locations, but they are not shown on these maps.




Streeter Pond Road, Sugar Hill (detail from Sketch Map G, White Mountains PAF)

As well as the 31 host communities, within the one-mile APE are located an additional 16 towns that would be visually impacted: Andover, Boscawan, Colebrook, Dix's Grant, Epsom, Errol, Franconia, Jefferson, Landaff, Lisbon, Littleton, Nottingham, Plymouth, Salisbury, Sanbornton, Wentworth's Location.

For instance, on the map above, visual impacts extend into a "non-host" town, Franconia, on the east side of I-93 near the right-center of the map.

To see visual impacts on individual towns within the one-mile APE, click on the relevant Project Area Form link below and scroll down the Sketch Maps until you find your town, which may be represented on more than one map. Civic boundaries are not shown on these maps. You will need to know street and road names or other identifying features.

For a fuller preliminary idea of visual impacts, view both the specific Section 106 Sketch Map for your area plus the corresponding AMC fly over video.

Sect. 106 White Mountains Project Area Form. Sketch Maps for Bethlehem, Campton, Dalton, Easton, Franconia, Landaff, Lincoln, Lisbon, Sugar Hill, Thornton, Whitefield, Woodstock, (Littleton). Click here.

(Corresponding AMC fly over videos for Whitefield - Dalton - Lancaster, Sugar Hill - Bethlehem, Woodstock - Lincoln - Easton, Campton - Thornton.)

Sect. 106 Great North Woods Project Area Form. Sketch Maps for Pittsburg, Clarksville, Stewartstown, Dixville, Dix’s Grant, Colebrook, Wentworth’s Location, Errol, Millsfield, Dummer, Stark, Northumberland, Lancaster, (Jefferson). Click here.

(Corresponding AMC fly over videos for Dixsville - Stewartston - Clarksville - Pittsburg, Dummer - Millsfield, Northumberland - Stark.)

Sect. 106 Lakes Region Project Area Form. Sketch Maps for Plymouth, Holderness, Ashland, Bridgewater, New Hampton, Bristol, Sanbornton, Hill, Franklin, Andover, Northfield, Salisbury. Click here.

(Corresponding AMC fly over videos for Bristol - Bridgewater - New Hampton - Ashland - Holderness, Northfield - Franklin - Hill - New Hampton.)

Sect. 106 Merrimack Valley Project Area Form. Sketch Maps for Canterbury, Boscawen, Concord, Epsom, Pembroke, Allenstown, Nottingham, Deerfield. Click here.

(Corresponding AMC fly over videos for Concord - Canterbury, Deerfield - Allenstown - Pembroke.)

All PAF Sketch Maps and other Section 106-related materials linked to in this blog post are located on the  public "Consultations - Section 106" page, the public "Project Library Documents" page, or the public "Project Library Comments" page of the DOE's Northern Pass EIS site.

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*NHDHR concurred with DOE's decision to limit the APE to 1 mile, but notes that it will adjust the APE if necessary to consider impacts on historical properties outside this area. (Northern Pass's lawyer, Maryanne Sullivan, Hogan Lovells, has commented on the APE here.) On June 19, 2015, the Forest Society and other stakeholders expressed dismay to NHDCR Commissioner Van McLeod over NHDHR's concurrence with the base 1-mile APE.