Power line crossing AT in White Mtn NF

[NHLucky]

People in New Hampshire are up in arms about the Northern Pass Transmission Project, scheduled to construct aerial towers of up to 150 feet in height through the White Mountain National Forest and across the Appalachian Trail near the Kinsman Ridge and Franconia Notch.

The line is to bring power from Hydro-Quebec to Connecticut. Renewable but questionably green since it involves massive damming that would not be permitted in the US. The companies involved, Hydro, Northeast Utilities and PSNH, refuse to even consider burying the line, which is eminently feasible and is going on in Vermont, NY and Maine.

We need your help to contact Tom Wagner, Forest Supervisor for the WMNF and let him know that we object to disfiguring our most scenic landscape in this way.

Please sign this online petition:


WMNF Petition at Change.org

[George]

the AT runs with / crosses thousands of power lines, and still accomplishes it's purpose - any one who has a problem with electrical transmission needs to go off the grid - this means also do not own / use any products that were made with the use of electricity directly or indirectly - otherwise you are a hypocrite

[Feral Bill]

the AT runs with / crosses thousands of power lines, and still accomplishes it's purpose - any one who has a problem with electrical transmission needs to go off the grid - this means also do not own / use any products that were made with the use of electricity directly or indirectly - otherwise you are a hypocrite

One can easily object to a particular project without opposing power transmission in general, just as one can oppose bad logging practices and support the timber industry in general, or oppose an ill conceived road project and still drive.

[WingedMonkey]

One can easily object to a particular project without opposing power transmission in general, just as one can oppose bad logging practices and support the timber industry in general, or oppose an ill conceived road project and still drive.

There you go trying to throw logic in to a thread...again.

[peakbagger]

Like any other power line project, this entire project is a can of "proverbial worms". Basically, if the utility buried it (like two other nearby recently approved projects) there would be a lot less opposition.

If you search for northern pass you will find many websites. The crossing of the AT is one aspect but the new cut and towers will potentially be visible along much of the above treeline sections of the trail. The exact routing is not established as the Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests is buying land and easements to block potential routes. Its sort of like "whack a mole" they buy one spot and the utility finds another one. Some landowners in the right spots in northern NH are getting millions of dollars from the utility to sell their land. The utility doesnt have the right to take the land by eminent domain so they have to buy one continous chunk from the US border to an existing right of way that starts in Lincoln NH. There is an existing power line at the AT crossin south of South Kinsman but that is under a special use permit that wont cover the new line.

By the way NH is net exporter of power to the rest of New England, the line is not going to supply any power to the state yet the residents are going to have to deal with the line. Its basically a way for Hydro Quebec to export hydropower from large scale hydropower dams in Northern Quebec to southern New England. Basically it allows southern new england to shift the impact of power production to tribal lands in northern Quebec.

[NHLucky]

Thanks for the clarifications, peakbagger. Here is a bit more info.

Northern Pass was announced in the fall of 2010. Since then, 35 towns on its 180 mile NH route from the Canadian border to Deerfield, NH have voted at town meeting to oppose this project due to the damage it would inflict on their towns. The AMC, SPNHF, the Conservation Law Foundation, the local Chambers of Commerce, the North Country Council and many other groups oppose the project for the unreasonable damage it would do to the landscape. The opposition is entirely nonpartisan, which is an amazing fact in and of itself.

The reason eminent domain is not available to the project is that opponents successfully lobbied the NH legislature to specifically revise the existing eminent domain statute to exclude elective, non-reliability, for-profit projects from using it. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) classifies this project as elective, meaning that is not essential for system reliability.

We who live here cherish our landscape. We find it particularly egregious that this merchant transmission line to facilitate a sale between two energy giants that will have no benefit to NH should be inflicted on our state and on the National Forest that we love. We would accept an underground line. There is talk of creating a state utility corridor along major highways where this line could be buried. This has already been done in Maine. A project moving Hydro power from Quebec to NY is going to go under Lake Champlain, under the Hudson and underground to NY. A low-impact solution is eminently feasible, yet Northern Pass resists. The effects on the National Forest, as peakbagger points out, are not limited to the crossing. The tree cut and the steel lattice towers will be visible for miles from above treeline.

We are asking for your help to protect the Forest we love.

Protect the White Mountain National Forest

[rickb]

More information on this and other issues here:

http://www.outdoors.org/conservation...sues/index.cfm

[Lone Wolf]

cell towers are cool though with hikers. they love to text. buncha hypocrites

[chief]

This thread is SPAM.

[NHLucky]

Sorry you feel that way, chief. It is certainly an issue related to the AT and one of great concern to the Appalachian Mountain Club.

[icemanat95]

I'll preface this by saying that I work in utility arboriculture maintaining vegetation and treelines along transmission powerlines in New England. If Northern Pass goes through, there is a pretty good chance that I'll be working on the line at some point.

While this is a powerful issue for conservationists, hikers and those who depend upon outdoor tourism, it is also a powerful issue for energy providers who need to provide an ever increasing amount of electrical power to consumers who are less and less tolerant of any interruptions, brownouts, etc. Providers are also being forced to abandon local generation sources due to regulatory demands, thus our coal plants are being put out of business and biomass plants are no longer eligible for subsidies as a renewable energy source. In Southern New England, Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power plant is being shut down in the near future and Brayton Point Generating (coal and Natural Gas) in Somersett Massachusetts is being shut down. Other plants in North Hampton Mass, Fitchburg and other places are also being shut down, often after extensive attempts to retool to meet environmental regs. PSNH's Bow Generating plant spent about a half a billion dollars installing an exhaust scrubbing system to make its exhaust comply with new standards, but is still running into regulatory issues over how it pays that bill.

Now thats the cost of doing business, to be sure, and the industry MUST meet responsible environmental standards, but regulations have jacked up the price of locally generated power from oil, gas, coal, etc, to very high levels. When Quebec Hydro comes in and offers to sell power for less than half the cost of other options, thats a no-brainer.

I cannot speak to the impact of the hydro project that provides the power. Seems an awfully big footprint to me. But I expect Canada has its own legal and environmental processes for that. It's built, that ship has sailed.

What I can speak to is the collossal impact of various "Green Energy" projects. The Kibby Mountain Wind Power project for one. The Kibby project involves 44 turbines built upon a ridgeline North of Stratton, Maine. The installation along two adjoining ridgelines involved the blasting of cubic miles of rock off the top of the ridges, the clearing of hundreds of acres of sub-boreal and boreal forest to install the towers and the miles of roads, feeder lines and transmission lines that service the towers. Each of the 44 towers sits on a cleared space about the size of a baseball field, which must be kept clear of vegetation. Up on the ridges, near the towers, there are few birds to be found and few animals of note other than some deer and moose who move through mostly at night when the turbines dont run. When the turbines run, nothing moves. I've been there, I've worked up there.

The whole renewable thing is questionable as well. The installation went into service three or four years ago. Since that time, one of the turbines has already failed, burning up without warning. The blades were damaged beyond repair, so was the turbine and its nacelle, the system of bearings it sits upon and the top few sections of the pylon. They all had to be replaced at a huge cost. Even if the turbines do, survive their full service life, its only twenty years, at which point they must be torn down to the ground and either replaced, or the project is abandoned. What this means is that at about the time the project pays for itself, it has to be decommissioned. The same is true of solar generating sites around the area, about the time they pay themselves off, they must go out of service. Thus the only way they actually pay is through government subsidies. And in both cases, Solar and wind, the physical footprint of the installations is very large for the amount of power generated.

All that said, as long as they keep building the damned things, I'll keep working on them to maintain the vegetation and sideline trees, but I don't like them. The future of green power is not in massive industrial installations, its going to be in point of use generation, where the power is generated and used at the same place.

First Power out of NY is planning an even larger Wind Power installation along the AT which will be visible from Bigelow Mountain all the way to Katahdin.

BTW, Northern Pass has also agreed to cut the size of its towers in high visual impact locations to about 80 feet...it'll require more of them to carry the lines safely and account for summer sag. They are also going underground in a number of places, but that is something they want to avoid because of the massive costs involved in blasting, excavating and protecting the line. Understand that we aren't talking about normal high voltage here. We are talking about what is classed as ultra-high voltage...carrying capacity of better than 345 thousand volts and possibly as high as twice that. In open air, objects within 14 feet of a 345 KV line can induct dangerous amounts of electricity off the line without ever making contact. Under favorable conditions arc flashes can occur. Actually making contact with a 345 KV line or another conductive object touching the line will result in damned near instant cremation/vaporization....the thoughts that run through your head when you are trimming branches along the edge of a transmission line. You can't have that sort of voltage leaking out of containment. It'll ground out pretty quickly and knock out the line, but it could get really messy.

So to install such a transmission line underground requires the engineering of the actual trench, managing the hydrology of the site which will be radically disrupted. Then maintaining this disruption. By contrast an above ground transmission line impacts the ground far less and is easier to protect, monitor and maintain. In both cases however, beneficial early successional habitat is created and maintained along the right of way. I'm not really advocating one or the other (or either in this case), just pointing out that putting a transmission line underground is no simple matter.

These issues are a lot more complicated than most of us give them credit for. Having worked in close proximity to a number of these projects, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the visual impact of a transmission line, even a big line, is much smaller than the impact of rows of 300 + foot tall wind turbines on top of ridge after ridge, after ridge.

[Slo-go'en]

I got agree with Iceman. I'd much rather a single transmission line then rows and rows of windmills in the view shead. I don't know why the windmill issue doesn't get as much opposition as the power line. All in all, the windmills are much more disruptive to the enviorment.

I can understand why they want to put line through NH - they need the rudundancy. And since it's such a long, long way to send electricity, I bet nearly half is lost along the way. So, the more lines you got, the better.

[peakbagger]

Both Slo-go em and I are going to end up with a few large utility windmills in our "backyards" about 5 miles as the crow flies with the Berlin Jericho project. This farm is going to be visible from the above treeline stretch of the AT from Mt Jefferson to Madison and will also be visible from parts of the Mahoosucs.

I have not been opposed to Northern Pass but am opposed to the current proposal which is mostly above ground. The developer grudgingly did agree to bury six miles when backed into a corner and had no other option. The technology is out there to bury but the developer signed a deal based on a low cost project and going underground is much more expensive. If the underground option is used, there are many existing right of ways including a rail line that could be used requiring minimal expansion of a right of way(sorry to pull work out of the mouth of the previous poster). The line is proposed for grid reliability, a very similar line about 20 miles west was shut down for a couple of days this summer due to a local who decided to do some target practice. The new line is just as vulnerable. The region also has ice storms on occasion and the reason we have wind farms is that northern NH has high winds . Burying the line makes it far less vulnerable to natural and human issues and running along existing right of ways makes it far easier to monitor than a remote right of way which currently is far from a straight line as it has to hopscotch around Federal land (which will not allow it) and other conservation easements. The developer currently argues that burial is uneconomic, yet three other competing lines (one currently approved) are all underground. Basically if the developer cant build a "cheap" above ground line then they could loose their contract and the millions they have spent to date buying right of ways (lots of very suddenly rich land owners in northern NH these days). The parent firm of the developer Northeast Utilities is under intense scrutiny from shareholders on this project and the CEO has staked his career on this.

The state of NH and other parties like the regional grid operator all have agreed that the line has no electric reliability benefit and is strictly a commercial venture. Due to this, the developer has no access to eminent domain rights afforded to projects that are needed for reliability. NH produces far more power than it uses currently and there is a projected surplus in the long term. The regional grid operator also to this point has refused to allow the rate base to fund this project. In general the main benefit is that it allows southern New England to shut down power plants in their backyards by running a long extension cord to Northern Quebec, ultimately a rather large expansion of NIMBY.

[4eyedbuzzard]

... In general the main benefit is that it allows southern New England to shut down power plants in their backyards by running a long extension cord to Northern Quebec, ultimately a rather large expansion of NIMBY.

With little to no positive financial impact for NH and the majority of its citizens, with the exception of a few landowners and towns where substations might be located. The areas where it plans to pass through are some of the most scenic in all the US, and are a main attraction for NH tourist industry. It's a good plan for Massachusetts and Connecticut and the FOR PROFIT power company - but not for NH.

[Starchild]

If they do this they should at least put in a shelter that has a smartphone recharging station for thru hikers.

There is a lot in this post, I've heard that the power lines don't benefit us so you can't have it, I've even heard the suggestion that if you object top this power line you should swear off grid electrical power.

What I don't hear is the balance, yes we like grid electrical power, but that does not mean that every place is a good place to install transmission lines. Places like national parks and stuff it would seem are the places to avoid, or at least 'hide' as sometimes there is no practical alternative.

[magneto]

Can't they leave just one area pristine? They won't die if the have to route around the Whites or if CT has to get more power from somewhere else. No windmills for the Whites, either. Worse than transmission lines.

[imscotty]

To the NH posters. I had not been through Dixville Notch in a couple of years until a drive this Fall and I was stunned at the transformation. Talk about putting a Windmill Farm in the middle of a pristine natural area. Yes, I am a hypocrite who wants to have the electricity to turn my lights on at night, but I understand and support the local opposition. Northern Pass offers more negatives than it does benefits to the people of Coos County. One of their most valuable resources is the incredible natural beauty of the area and the tourists and the jobs it brings. Northern Pass as designed will be a blight on the landscape and harmful to a region that is just getting by as it is.