NH Senate Denies Eminent Domain for Northern Pass – Or Does It?

Under intense public scrutiny, the New Hampshire Senate last week approved a bill that supposedly sets limits on the use of eminent domain to seize property for public projects and excludes using it for privately-funded projects.

That would seem to exclude the controversial Northern Pass project, a proposed 180-mile transmission line that would bring hydroelectric power south from Canada through the White Mountains to central New Hampshire. Northern Pass is being proposed by a joint effort of Northeast Utilities, NSTAR and HydroQuebec, all private companies.

The power brought down from Canada is not meant for New Hampshire, but would be sold on the open market.

Northern Pass had been quietly suggesting they might pursue eminent domain if they ran into property owners unwilling to sell. They have already spent some $4 million buying up land along the route, but ran into a roadblock when the owners of the Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch sold a key parcel to a conservation group instead.

Opponents of the project packed the visitors gallery during the Senate proceedings, and were cheered by the vote, which they saw as another setback for the developers.

The celebration might be premature.

There seems to be a loophole (isn’t there always?) big enough to drive a utility truck through. The bill allows eminent domain to be used for energy projects if it is shown that the project would be beneficial for the environment. And a late amendment puts some of the decision-making powers into the hands of ISO-New England, a power regulator that works closely with the companies involved in the project.

It might be worth noting that ISO-New England supports the re-licensing of the rickety old Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, completely disregarding a long list of safety issues. They probably wouldn’t blink twice at ripping a transmission line through some of the most beautiful landscape in New England.

                      

Northern Pass Developers Pushing State To Take Land By Force

Ever since the controversy began over the construction of a new transmission line to bring power from Canada into New Hampshire slicing through some of that state’s most scenic landscape, the backers of the project have been quietly lobbying for eminent domain powers to force reluctant landowners along the proposed route to sell.

The issue gets its first real test tomorrow when the New Hampshire Senate takes up a measure that would amend the state eminent domain law to allow them to do just that.

Until just a few years ago, eminent domain was only regarded as a last resort by governments when it was necessary to buy land for needed public projects – highways, schools, etc.

In a case from New London, Connecticut, the Supreme Court under the Bush administration ruled that such a land-taking could be initiated for a private project, if some demonstrable public good resulted. At issue was an old neighborhood in the Fort Trumbull section of New London. Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, had indicated had it wanted to build a facility in the New London area.

A local developer convinced the city government that the Fort Trumbull neighborhood would be a perfect site for Pfizer as well as other businesses that it would attract. The only problem was that the residents didn’t want to sell.

Using the argument that the project would give a much needed boost to the local economy, the Supreme Court ruled that the homes could be taken by eminent domain. As a result, the residents were bought out, forced to find homes elsewhere. The houses were torn down, the land was bulldozed, and then Pfizer announced it would build somewhere else. Only recently have a few new homes been built on the site.

The Northern Pass developers had initially argued that the project would bring much-needed electrical power to New Hampshire. It quickly was revealed that New Hampshire had plenty of electrical power, and most of the imported power would be sold on the grid.

They then changed their argument, saying it would mean up to 1,500 jobs in the Granite State, but a rival power group now says those figures are exaggerated, in reality less than half that number, and most of those would go to specialists who would likely have to be hired from outside New Hampshire.

As a spokesperson for the Northern Pass developers said, “You have to consider the source.”

That cuts both ways.

The Balsams Landscape Has Been Saved!

Every once in a while the good guys win one.

The Society for the Preservation of New Hampshire Forests has reached its goal of raising $850,000 to buy a 5,800-acre parcel of land near the famous Balsams Grand Hotel in Dixville Notch, NH. They made the announcement in a statement yesterday on their website.

The land was considered a key piece on the proposed route of the controversial Northern Pass transmission line project. Developers of the $1.2 billion project – a joint venture of NSTAR and Northeast Utilities   have already spent $4 million buying up land for the project, even though it has yet to be approved.

As an indication of just how important this parcel is to the project, the developers had offered $3 million for this one piece alone. offered $3 million for the same piece of land, but the Tillotson Corporation, owners of The Balsams Grand Hotel and the parcel in question, offered to sell it as conservation land for the lesser amount if the amount could be raised by today (Jan. 15).

The project would bring electricity from HydroQuebec in Canada to southern New Hampshire, where it would then be sold on the open market. The transmission line would cut a wide swath through parts of the White Mountain National Forest, replacing the famously picturesque landscape with tall steel pylons laced with high-power lines.

Even Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has checked in on the project, suggesting that the lines should be buried, a notion the developers reject as being prohibitively expensive.

Will the developers have to abandon their plans? They had to abandon an earlier proposed route in the face of heavy local opposition.

Northern Pass officials have not made any comment yet on this latest setback. However, they have been supporting efforts to broaden eminent domain laws to allow land-taking for private projects. There was also an earlier suggestion by company officials that the Tillotson Corporation was obligated to choose their higher bid in the interests of their stockholders.

Stay tuned.                         

Worcester officials cite city parks to defend continued pollution of Blackstone River

I was trying to find a short, pithy way of describing the gist of an article that appeared in today’s Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette.

Here’s the story.

The Blackstone River has its source in Worcester and flows through Rhode Island into Narragansett Bay. Since colonial times, residents and businesses have regarded it as their personal sewage system. The passage of the Clean Water act made that illegal, but it didn’t put a stop to it.

Environmental agencies and organizations have worked hard to clean up the river, and a lot of progress has been made. One of the major problems that still exists is Worcester’s wastewater treatment system. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has found that the plant is still discharging nacceptable amounts of sewage of chemicals – especially nutrients – into the river, hampering cleanup efforts downstream.

In 2008, the EPA issued strict new guidelines and odered the city to make improvements t meet those guidelines. It’s an expensive venture – about $200 million – and an increase in sewage fees amounting to $225 per year per household. Worcester officials have been fighting it every step of the way.

The city is asking for a modification to the guidelines. Environmental groups oppose modifying them, saying the city has been dragging its feet for long enough. The state Department of Environmental Protection recently came down on the side of the city, asking the federal EPA to ease upand compromise. It’s no accident the Lt. Gov. is from Worcester.

So why should Worcester get a pass on adding pollutants to the river? According to the city manager, it’s because the city has a lot of parks and open space, representing a commitment to conservation and the environment.  The connection is a fuzzy one.

And to be sure, the city has a lot fewer trees than it used to, ever since it was discovered that it was playing host to an infestation of the Asian Long-Horned beetle. Thousands of trees were cut down, denuding most of the city.

Slick media campaign hides the dark side of Northern Pass

The campaign to approve the billion-dollar plan to bring hydroelectric power from Canada to New England is in full swing. The home page for the project features pictures of all the things we like about New Hampshire, things like pristine lakes and woods. What it doesn’t show are the 140 miles of transmission lines criss-crossing the White Mountains, with 135-foot high steel towers poking up through the trees every few hundred feet.

The information, so-called, talks about how the line will bring “much-needed” energy to the region. The fact is, there is no serious need for additional energy in that area. Much of what will be imported will be sold elsewhere. But just to make sure they have a ready market, the developers of the project, Public Service of New Hampshire and their affiliates also want a 40-year no-bid contract with the state.

They’re also looking for waivers from several other regulations that they would normally have to comply with.

Despite its name, PSNH is a private company, not a public utility, yet it wants to use eminent domain as a way to force reluctant property owners to give up their land to make way for the transmission lines. They’re also looking for changes in state law to make power drawn from the large-scale hydroelectric plant in Quebec as a “renewable resource” – disregarding the environmental damage that project has caused, and, not coincidentally, making them eligible for millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

The plan is opposed by other energy suppliers as being patently unfair, the tourism industry which fears the effect of a blighted landscape on its industry, and environmental organizations. Their voices are being drowned out by the all-out media blitz by PSNH.

Approval for the project is still some months away, but so confident is PSNH of government approval that they have begun buying up property along the way. And there’s a shroud of secrecy around these purchases – with property owners who have sold land not being allowed to discuss the deals publicly.

Does it feel as though the fix is in?                

US media AWOL as Perry censors inconvenient truth

I’m not sure which is more disturbing – the fact that Texas officials in Gov. Rick Perry’s administration purged all mention of climate change on a 200-page environmental report commissioned by the state, or the fact that it has gone nearly unreported by the U.S. media.

In a nearly unprecedented move, the scientists who prepared the report have disowned it, demanding that their names be taken off the document. Once Perry’s political hacks got done with it, they wanted nothing to do with it.

“To me it is simply a question of maintaining scientific credibility,” said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre, in an article in The Guardian.

The report details the risks from rising sea levels, increased droughts, and more severe weather, much of which can be attributed to global climate change.

In the kind of ignorance reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration, Perry refuses to accept evolution, climate change, and apparently anything else science-related. And so it shouldn’t be too surprising that when this report was submitted to the Texas Commissionion on Environmental Quality, they didn’t like what they read.

The chairman of the commission, Bryan Shaw, a Perry appointee, is fond of calling climate change a hoax. They are not the least embarrassed by the episode, and justify it on political grounds.

Andrea Morrow, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the report was “inconsistent with current agency policy.”

And it wasn’t just a matter of expunging a few words, they did away with any data that didn’t support their policy – for instance the fact that sea levels at Galveston Bay are rising five times faster than the previous average as taken out completely.

But here’s another puzzle. The story has been reported in detail both by the French news service AFP and by the UK paper The Guardian, but not the major U.S. media.

Rick Perry is also running for president. Every statement, every nuance of body language is dissected by the U.S. political media. Why would they ignore something like this? Even he governor’s wife receives more coverage than this.

Shouldn’t people know what kind of governance we can expect if someone like this elected? Didn’t we learn anything from the dark ages of GW Bush?

PSNH and its dirty coal-burning plant

For years, a coal-burning power plant in Bow, NH, has been destroying the aquatic life of the Merrimack River, and the plant’s owners want to continue to do so unhindered. They take exception to a proposal from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that they upgrade their cooling system.

According to a report by the EPA, the current system  - which dates back to the days of unfettered pollution - heats up the habitat around the plant and traps fish in its system.

“We know that the fish populations have changed dramatically,” said EPA spokesman David Deegan in an article in Friday’s Concord Monitor. “A lot of the changes we see are fish that want warmer water.”

The owners, Public Service of New Hampshire, are the same group that wants to cut a gash through the White Mountains to bring electricity south from Canada – not for New Hampshire consumers, but to sell elsewhere. The name is nothing short of misleading -  they are not a public entity, but a private corporation, and the only service they’re interested in, is to their shareholders.

Which brings us back to the coal plant – the upgrade is going to cost a lot of money. Thus far, the company has been lucky to keep operating the way it has. They should have been ordered to do this years ago – but during the Bush administration the EPA was ordered not enforce regulations, and so they were able to operate without any interference.

Now that the EPA seems to have woken up from its Rip Van Winkle siesta, PSNH is crying foul.

“I’m not exaggerating when I’m saying we received very little in reaction and communication to the material we were very frequently providing to the EPA,” said PSNH spokesman Martin Murray.

He makes it sound as if they were just waiting for the go-ahead on this. Nothing was stopping them from upgrading their system. What’s the problem now?

This doesn’t even address the need to put an end to coal-burning plants. None other than multi-millionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg – not exactly a ranting, raving radical – has seen the light, and is willing to put his money where his mouth is with a sizeable grant to the Sierra Club to help in its effort to put an end to coal-burning plants.