Supporters of New England Clean Energy Connect continue to promote inaccurate and disturbing facts.

The Dec. 26 Another View guest editorial by Richard Barringer and Lloyd Irland contains misinformation and a disturbing fact about the planning of NECEC.

If NECEC had been planned “for most of a decade,” as Barringer and Irland stated, it was undertaken in secret without informing Maine people or the Maine Legislature. This is reminiscent of the secret 2014 lease agreement between the Maine Public Utilities Commission and the director of the Bureau of Parks and Lands to use public reserved land for the transmission line without informing the public or the Maine Legislature. Fortunately, Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy declared the lease agreement void.

The claim that site selection was undertaken with care is inconsistent with the Department of Environmental Protection report that granted a license to Central Maine Power-Avangrid-Iberdrola. The transmission line was initially located near a designated remote pond, Beattie Pond. The Maine Land Use Planning Commission forced CMP-Avangrid-Iberdrola to move the transmission line path.

The transmission line would damage the habitat of 13 rare and endangered species; destroy 9.2 acres of rare jack pine forest; traverse Coburn Mountain, the highest mountain in the Upper Kennebec Valley, and be visible from Route 201.

The DEP required CMP-Avangrid-Iberdrola to conserve 40,000 acres to offset the environmental damage from the transmission line.

It is about time that supporters of NECEC admit that they are willing to sacrifice the environment of the Upper Kennebec Valley to send hydropower to Massachusetts.

John Nicholas
Winthrop

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