An excavator spreads ground-up tree tops alongside the NECEC hall in Johnson Mountain Township in November. Work on the hall was halted following a profitable referendum and the ground-up bushes had been unfold alongside the hall to maintain the soil from eroding whereas the undertaking’s destiny is set. Gregory Rec/Employees Photographer
Greater than two years after the Maine Division of Environmental Safety granted a conditional building allow for the $1 billion New England Clear Vitality Join transmission line, the company’s citizen board met Wednesday to think about appeals filed by undertaking opponents.
The assembly of the Board of Environmental Safety opened a two-day session that marked yet one more problem to a divisive plan to convey a serious new supply of power from Canada into New England’s electrical grid. However the undertaking has been on maintain since November, when voters handed a statewide referendum aimed toward killing it. Wednesday’s assembly was the most recent entrance in a battle that has raged because the NECEC line was first proposed in 2017.
Towards the tip of an extended day stuffed with technical and authorized wrangling, board members had been left to ponder: Is a further listening to wanted for the board to claim its authority over choices made two years in the past on the DEP, or are the appeals only a delay tactic by critics, aimed toward ensuring the undertaking isn’t accomplished?
The BEP classes have been a very long time coming. However amid a modified authorized and political panorama, the potential affect of them is unclear.
That’s as a result of a lot has occurred because the Could 11, 2020, motion by DEP Commissioner Melanie Loyzim to provide the go-ahead.
On November 3, 2021, voters overwhelmingly permitted a referendum query aimed toward killing the $1 billion undertaking. By that time, undertaking developer Avangrid, the father or mother firm of Central Maine Energy and NECEC, had already spent $450 million, cleared many of the right-of-way and had begun erecting poles. Work was halted a couple of weeks later, per DEP order.
Then final Could, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court docket heard arguments on two authorized challenges, one involving how the brand new voter-approved legislation impacts the undertaking’s rights, the opposite coping with whether or not NECEC had a sound lease to cross state-owned land. Selections are anticipated any week now, and so they might eclipse the BEP proceedings, relying on the end result.
Additional delay is sweet for opponents and unhealthy for the undertaking.
NECEC’s chief govt, Thorn Dickinson, informed the DEP in testimony final fall {that a} delay reaching into this summer time would make it unimaginable to place the undertaking in service by August 2024, a contractual deadline with utilities in Massachusetts. That date could possibly be prolonged till August 2025, Dickinson famous, if the corporate posted as much as $10.9 million in extra safety. He additionally estimated on the time {that a} 12-month delay would add roughly $67 million to building prices.
A necessary ingredient of the two-day assembly is deciding whether or not the appeals course of ought to open to public enter. The DEP collected six days of public testimony in 2019 on the allow utility.
The BEP is scheduled to vote Thursday on the general public listening to subject. If the members vote to carry a listening to, will probably be scheduled as quickly as potential. If they refuse, they are going to transfer on instantly to determine on the appeals.
In opposition to this backdrop, the seven-person citizen board heard appeals from three separate events, consolidating them into one continuing. The events are:
• Pure Assets Council of Maine, the state’s main environmental group. Amongst different issues, it argued that that DEP’s choice failed to fulfill the requirements of Maine’s environmental legal guidelines or assess the undertaking’s greenhouses gasoline impacts. NRCM additionally stated the DEP commissioner lacked the authority to subject CMP’s allow, as a result of solely the citizen board has jurisdiction over permits for tasks of statewide significance.
• NextEra Vitality Assets, a Florida-based diversified power firm. NextEra owns the Seabrook nuclear energy station in New Hampshire, which might be financially threatened by cheaper energy from NECEC. The corporate additionally has proposed renewable power tasks in western Maine which might be unable to attach on the devoted, NECEC line.
NextEra spent $20 million in help of the 2021 referendum marketing campaign in opposition to the undertaking. The corporate stated the DEP failed to think about steps to reduce the undertaking’s affect, comparable to operating wires underground and additional shrinking the width of the hall.
• West Forks Group, a group of western Maine residents and pursuits centered alongside the facility line route. They embody the city of Caratunk, native companies and information companies. The group stated the DEP disregarded quite a lot of adverse impacts to wildlife and the atmosphere, and that the NECEC lacks a transparent title to all of the land alongside the route.
Individually, the NRCM additionally appealed Loyzim’s 2021 approval of transferring CMP’s preliminary license to a restricted legal responsibility company.
A COMPLEX PROCESS
Why did it take greater than two years to carry this assembly?
The BEP members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature. The board is a part of the DEP, nevertheless it has impartial rule and decision-making authority in sure issues, comparable to appeals of licenses.
This enchantment course of was very complicated, in response to Invoice Hinkel, the BEP’s govt analyst. After the 4 appeals had been consolidated, he famous, events made a unprecedented variety of filings and motions. These required evaluation and responses, together with a 77-page proposed order drafted by the DEP employees.
A gathering was scheduled for February, after which for Could, however each wanted to be postponed.
Venture opponents have been pissed off by the delay, and by the board’s unwillingness to include new developments into the appeals course of. They say extra public enter is required to mirror adjustments which have taken place because the allow was permitted. Organized by the Say No to NECEC citizen group, they held a rally exterior the Augusta Civic Middle previous to the assembly holding indicators comparable to, “comply with the legislation, no CMP hall.”
Wednesday’s assembly was live-streamed on Zoom. Thursday’s session, which begins at 9 a.m., additionally is obtainable on-line.
PUSH FOR MORE PUBLIC INPUT
Throughout Wednesday’s presentation, the lead legal professional representing NRCM, James Kilbreth, pressed the board to carry a public listening to. He recounted the historical past of how the Legislature clarified after 2011 that tasks of statewide significance – these effecting a number of cities and attracting vital public consideration – shall be deferred by the DEP fee to the board.
“If there’s a undertaking of statewide significance,” Kilbreth stated, “it has to return to the board.”
As well as, he stated, the board ought to collect new enter from the general public, to honor that legislative intent.
Kilbreth additionally tried to introduce an acknowledgment that voters had handed a referendum aimed toward killing the undertaking, however the board’s chair and presiding officer reminded him that new data isn’t open for consideration. Kilbreth demurred, however urged the general public pay attention to the “Alice in Wonderland high quality of this continuing,” for not contemplating the apparent new realities.
The board’s chair, Susan Lessard, requested Kilbreth which matters weren’t adequately addressed in previous public hearings. He highlighted three – the disputed values of “tapering” bushes alongside the hall edge, wetlands of particular significance and the way necessities for NECEC to compensate the state for impacts of the undertaking are measured. Kilbreth urged the board might cowl these matters in a one-day listening to.
Elizabeth Boepple, an legal professional representing the West Forks Group, gave a short, private overview of the folks behind the enchantment, the Maine Guides, the native leisure and vacationer companies. She wished to “humanize” the board’s choice, to point out the undertaking’s affect on folks dwelling and dealing in woodlands alongside the route.
As a result of 53 miles of the hall from The Forks to the Canadian border has already been clear reduce, Boepple stated, there’s no purpose for the board to depend on photo-simulations and proof launched two years in the past. Maintain a listening to primarily based on what’s taking place on the bottom as we speak, she stated.
However Matthew Manahan, an legal professional representing CMP and NECEC, stated the DEP had spent greater than two years conducting one in all its most complete critiques ever of a undertaking and is requiring an unprecedented degree of pure useful resource safety. There’s no purpose for a brand new listening to, Manahan stated, after a whole bunch of individuals have already got testified and the document has generated tens of hundreds of pages of proof.
Manahan acknowledged that each one tasks have some environmental affect, however stated the mitigation steps required by the DEP compensate for that. He additionally asserted that the most important affect to Maine’s atmosphere is local weather change, which he stated could be offset by the clear energy from NECEC.
NRCM and the appellees merely don’t like the end result of the commissioner’s order, Manahan stated, and are utilizing delay techniques to derail the method. They’re elevating meritless claims designed to confuse the board.
“Don’t allow them to confuse you,” he urged the board.
CANADIAN ENERGY GOING TO MASSACHUSETTS
The NECEC is designed to be a high-voltage, direct-current transmission line with a capability of 1,200 megawatts, sufficient power to run roughly 1 million houses. It could carry Canadian power generated by the undertaking’s accomplice, Hydro-Quebec, to an alternate-current converter station in Lewiston, the place it could enter the New England electrical grid. It’s being constructed largely for the good thing about Massachusetts electrical clients, who can pay the $1 billion price.
The 145-mile route is on land owned or managed by CMP, apart from a one-mile patch via Maine public lands close to The Forks. Two-thirds of the route follows current CMP energy line corridors, a few of that are being widened as much as 75 toes to accommodate one other set of poles.
The 53-mile stretch between The Forks and the Quebec border bisects undeveloped industrial forest. The realm has been logged for generations however has high-value qualities for wildlife, recreation and biodiversity. Permits require the facility hall on this part to be not more than 54 toes extensive. Fewer than 1,000 acres are being cleared in whole for the undertaking.
NECEC secured all its state and federal permits earlier than building started final winter, however permits from the DEP and Military Corps are being contested.
Previous to winter, crews stabilized the facility line path to restrict erosion and different environmental impacts. Work on the undertaking has been on maintain since then.
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