The Sun Journal feature in the April 14 Maine Sunday Telegram on Lewiston being a linchpin connecting Hydro-Quebec to Massachusetts speaks volumes as to why, in the very words of its proponents, that project should never be allowed to become a reality.
“A constant, deep hum” from “a huge transformer” at an existing substation; “nothing moves amid its vast array of … towers and cables” despite there being emanations from those invisible 345,000 volts they carry, eh?
Of course, none of Spain’s Central Maine Power/Avangrid/Iberdroia conglomerate hierarchy and spokespeople, nor the Lewiston City Council proponents live close by to be annoyed by the irritating effects of the constant hum on human ears residing alongside those towers and cables, as well as disturbing wildlife. Imagine how much greater the effects will be on all life forms living adjacent to a new 145-mile line, even if its half the width of the Jersey pike, carrying 1,200 megawatts of electricity every hour and not one iota of it going to Maine users.
Then there’s that troubling statement: “Electricity flowing through Lewiston would almost instantaneously supply power for consumers from Connecticut to Cape Cad to Caribou, everywhere the interconnected regional grid touches in six states.”
I would remind New England Clean Energy Connect spokesman John Carroll of the conglomerate, the deal between Hydro-Quebec and Massachusetts regulators, is that all the power goes exclusively to the Bay State; thus, saying locations in the other five states, such as Caribou, will receive some of it is hogwash and bamboozle.
Whether to clear-cut a 145-mile swath through Maine’s landscape for Massachusetts’ benefit is something that should be voted on by the Maine people, not the politician’s yielding the sums of corporate gift money they foresee as filling budgetary gaps in local projects that benefit only a few rather than every Mainer.
John Davis
South Paris
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