The Sign Gallery (1-10)

Please send us a picture of your home-made or other sign opposing Northern Pass and we'll post it here. Each "Sign Gallery" post will feature 10 signs.

Address for pictures: burynorthernpass<at>gmail.com. Thanks!







#1 Rte 3, Stratford, Mark McCullock, January 2011

 




#2 Greg Lamm, January 2011

 


#3 January 2011





#4 Poster Girls, January 2011



#5 Shaw's, Concord, January 2011



#6 Charles Young's Petition-on-Wheels panel truck with initial signatures, February 2, 2011.
Give him a wave and he'll give you a Sharpie to sign on. Just a friendly reminder: DOT prohibits profanity.

#7  I-93 Northbound near Plymouth





 


#8  Rte. 3, Stratford




#9  Rte 3, Stratford, "Five Chimneys," just north of Sign #1, February 2011



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.

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.