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.