I applaud the Portland Press Herald editorial board for editorializing in favor of the New England Clean Energy Connect corridor, which will bring 1,200 megawatts of clean energy to Maine and the New England power grid. Since that Feb. 24, 2019, editorial, three Maine and two federal regulatory agencies have exhaustively considered the proposal and granted the necessary permits.

But an Associated Press article, written by David Sharp and published in the Press Herald on Jan. 22 (“Referendum: Foes of CMP line appear to have the signatures,” Page A8), perpetuated a false and misleading myth about the project. The corridor will not “travel through a lengthy stretch of wilderness.” It will travel through an area logged for more than 100 years with numerous stripcuts, and crisscrossed by access and logging roads and even a railroad!

For the 99 percent of Mainers who have never set foot in the corridor area (and probably never will), and who rely on your paper for accurate and factual reporting, to call this area a wilderness amounts to a careless yet serious mistake by the AP writer, Sharp, and the Press Herald editor who read and printed the article.

Too many news articles, too many days of hearings, too many hours of expert testimony have occurred in the over three years that NECEC has been proposed for such a glaring mischaracterization to be repeated.

Opponents, aided by out-of-state fossil fuel money from Texas and Florida, continue day by day to misstate the facts. You should not.

Christopher Ayres
former photographer and staff member, Maine Times
Pownal

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