Northern Pass or Northern Gash?

Once again we’re finding out just how expendable our national forests are. This time it’s about cutting a high-power transmission line through the White Mountain National Forest.

So here’s the deal. Northeast Utilities wants to buy electricity for HydroQuebec, mostly for its customers in southern New Hampshire, though other parts of New England will get some, too. Maybe not entirely free of controversy, it does provide a reasonably clean, renewable source of energy. It’s important for the region as well, especially the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, the Titanic of the nuclear power industry, may be out of business by next March.

But here’s the catch. They say they need to build a new transmission line to carry all that power, and it has to cut through about 10 miles of the White Mountain National Forest. According to the Appalachian Mountain Club, this new line will create a 450-wide corridor, with steel pylons 135 feet high. Maybe it should be called the Northern Gash, instead.

It will cross the Appalachian Trail, come with a half-mile of the Eliza Brook shelter and 4 miles of the Lonesome Lake Hut.

Compared to other parts of the country, New England is a small region, with precious little in the way of wilderness areas, and even those are constantly under threat from once kind of development or another. We must protect what’s left.

There is already a transmission line from Canada that runs down through Vermont. Is it impossible to use that?

Residents along the proposed route are already mobilizing to block this plan. They deserve everyone’s support.