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THE NORTHERN PASS EIS
PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING
MOUNTAIN VIEW GRAND RESORT
WHITEFIELD, NEW HAMPSHIRE
September 25, 2013
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
[email protected]
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RAY BURTON: Good earning, everyone. For
the record, my name is Ray Burton. It's been my
honor to serve on the New Hampshire Executive
Council now in my 36th year, and this map of the
State of New Hampshire is quite simple. Just
make one fold at the bottom of the map and
that's where you find 108 towns and 4 cities
spread across the northern 7 counties of the
State of New Hampshire. I, of course, appear in
opposition as I did on December 27th in 2010, in
opposition to this project. The ISO group
stated last summer when we were having hot days
that New England had enough power to get by.
New Hampshire has 4600 miles of state-owned,
state-maintained highway. We also have 400
miles of rail corridor. I would encourage the
department and those interested in this project
that the whole project be buried. Period. And
we in New Hampshire state government are not
making new ground or plowing new ground. We
voted at Governor Council several years ago to
bury a methane pipeline from Turnkey in
Rochester down to UNH so that they could help
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West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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with their energy costs. So as I stated before
on December 27, 2010, it's time for this
project, Public Service Company/Hydro-Quebec to
fold their tent and go home and leave us alone.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Ray, and thank you to the crowd for resisting
that temptation to clap. I know it's tough, and
it's hard not to clap for Ray. Paul Grenier.
PAUL GRENIER: My name is Paul Grenier and
I reside in Berlin, New Hampshire. I currently
serve as the Mayor of the city of Berlin, and
I'm also a twelve-year Commissioner of Coos
County. I rise here today to support the
Northern Pass project in the route they have
proposed through Coos County. This new route
relies on existing rights-of-way that already
hosts electric lines, utilizes industrial forest
property ideal for projects like this, includes
a short span of underground that significantly
reduces lower view impacts in the northern Coos
County and lowers the heights of most towers in
our region. In total this redesigned route
significantly reduces the impacts on Coos
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West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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County. A critical part of this project is the
benefits it will bring to Coos County. As many
of you are aware Coos County economy continues
to struggle. Businesses face difficult times
and jobs are scarce. Northern Pass would bring
a major influx of new tax investment in our
region. Nearly 6 million dollars in new tax
revenues will flow to support local communities
as well as the county. Services like road
maintenance, welfare, nursing homes, law
enforcement and others will all benefit from
this investment in our county.
This also provides an opportunity to reduce
the tax burden of our citizens. Those of you
who are tasked with managing the county budgets
see the cost of services continue to increase
while the number of tax buyers continue to
decrease. This place is an unsustainable burden
on those of us that are remaining. Northern
Pass is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not
only invest in the country but also reduce this
burden on taxpayers. The stability of this tax
revenue, however, remains a concern for many of
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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us. While PSNH has been a reliable taxpayer in
Coos County it is critical that residents and
taxpayers have assurances that the Northern Pass
tax revenue will remain stable for the next 20
years. I look forward to working to provide
that stability for our taxpayers. Thank you and
I urge you to undertake a thorough but efficient
review of this project to insure that Coos
citizens realize this benefit.
MODERATOR: Our next speaker. Ed Betz.
ED BETZ: My name is Ed Betz. I am the
Chairman of the Whitefield Planning Board and
CIP committee. Consideration should be given to
burying the DC line just north of Whitefield
Village at the PSNH substation. Right of way is
tight in this location and the substation is in
the middle of the right-of-way thus there are
proposed multiple towers close to Route 3 and
nearby residents. The proposed towers are to be
115 feet tall versus 55 feet for the existing
115 kV line. This is a terrible gateway for
Whitefield Village.
At the Mt. Washington Regional Airport, the
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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airport commissioners and FAA are proposing a
1000-foot one-way extension to accommodate jet
and commuter aircraft. At the north end of the
runway is the existing 115 kV line, which
structure is 55 feet tall and proposed DC towers
at 90 feet. The question is how will this
affect light safety and the glide path.
Reviewing the visual simulation at Burns Pond
and Forest Lake Road the monopole option would
be much more aesthetically pleasing than lattice
towers, but we have to ask the question that's
been asked before, two of them, will the
structures be designed to avoid a repeat of a
Quebec ice storm in 1998 and why can New York
State and Hydro-Quebec and New York utilities
bury 300 miles underground utilities when it's
not economical in New Hampshire. I know there's
a big piece of equipment today that can dig very
fast. And also appears that the DC line will be
much more valuable in the future as time passes
with Vermont Yankee and the coal and the oil
plants going out. And this is a comment from
the Whitefield Selectman. Two years ago PSNH
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
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met with a group of Whitefield residents at the
Town Offices. The question was asked is how
will depreciation be calculated. Will
depreciation be a straight line for two years,
five years, ten years, 20 years, when the
residence and future residents of Whitefield is
going to have to look at this line for
generations. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Ed. Next speaker, Marcia Hammond.
MARCIA HAMMON: Good evening, and I thank
you for giving us this opportunity to comment in
Whitefield, New Hampshire. I represent as a
State Elected Representative Carroll, Jefferson,
Whitefield and Randolph, and I wish to present
you with an important scenario that Northern
Pass could embrace. Bury the lines that
Hydro-Quebec's power will transmit to southern
New England. We of northern New England invite
the suburban and urban persons that are the
nature deprived, the ND persons, when driving
north on I-93 at Exit 30, the wooden towers
define a cut through the White Mountain National
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
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Forest. We have actually come to accept that
and may look for it when we are driving the
snowy roads. I'm here to state we do not want a
wider cut through the ROW or the right-of-way
that is in the Northern Pass plan. This would
support another trail of taller steel or metal
towers.
I am of the generation that read and
subscribed to the book Awake and Aware. Women
changed the way hospitals, actually profit and
nonprofit hospitals, dictated how babies were
delivered. Separated, my first baby, separated
from mother, husband and supportive family
members once a child was born and within a few
years women have imagined an improvement that
was beneficial for future generations and for
parenting. My generation is now joined with new
voices and we're saying no to the Northern Pass
as it is envisioned by her corporate leaders.
Moving massive quantities of electricity across
our state when it has been determined that it is
not needed. Our citizens are not a developing
country that can be flummoxed or trod upon, run
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over. Previously we have attended to our
archeological sites. We have been conscientious
about conserving our sensitive lands. I speak
for the hungry eyes and the hungry hearts of
Europeans and Asians that trek to our state
burying the 8 miles that has been the second
plan I feel is a snub of our efforts to protect
the preciousness of our New Hampshire's beauty.
Please do not degrade and scar the vistas that
we revere. Please bury your pipelines as you
have in neighboring states. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Marcia. Brad Bailey.
BRAD BAILEY: Good evening. My name is
representative Brad Bailey and I represent the
citizens of Grafton 14 which encompasses the
towns of Bethlehem, Franconia, Lisbon,
Littleton, Lyman, Monroe and Sugar Hill. When
this project was first announced I had no
opinion one way or the other as to whether the
Northern Pass was a good idea or not. After
spending time researching the project and
listening to my constituents I have publicly
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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come out opposed to the Northern Pass as
proposed.
It is my understanding that for the
Department of Energy to issue a Presidential
Permit, DOE must find that the project is,
quote, consistent with the public interest, end
quote. DOE's determination of whether a project
is consistent with the public interest depends
on the potential environmental impacts of the
project as documented and evaluated during a
National Environmental Policy Act review which
include the impacts of the project on electric
system reliability and any other factors DOE
views as relevant to the public interest.
I believe you may ultimately make the case
for additional electricity in southern New
England. Clearly, there is no current need here
in New Hampshire. So Hydro-Quebec would serve
as the electrical outlet, southern New England
as the user and New Hampshire as the extension
cord connecting the two. We all know that your
consideration does not rest on just what the
people of New Hampshire want or need, but if you
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
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look at whether or not this project is
consistent with the public interest you must
consider the impact on the hard working people
of the North Country. This project will result
in the loss of tourism dollars vital to our
region. Real estate values will undoubtedly
plummet for many and the planned Pass will cross
environmentally sensitive areas. Clearly as you
can see evidenced by the many people here, the
vast majority of citizens in northern New
Hampshire don't want this. If you determined
this project must go forward against the will of
the people, then as a compromise it should be
buried. I would hope that you would consider
the issues I've raised and that of the many
people here tonight as being, quote, relevant,
to the public interest. End quote. Thanks for
your time.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Brad. Susan Ford.
SUSAN FORD: Thank you. For the record, my
name is Susan Ford. I am a representative in
the New Hampshire House of Representatives and
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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one of the 7 towns I represent is Easton where
the Northern Pass plans to cross the White
Mountain National Forest. I attended the
scoping sessions in Plymouth yesterday and share
some of the concerns of my colleagues. I
believe that Northern Pass should have to prove
that they have a clear legal path before having
their permit application accepted. Pretending
that they have a legal right to bury the line on
state and town roads is a joke. I suspect
you'll hear more about this tomorrow evening.
Their alternative plan is worse. They plan
to go under the Vermont headwaters. Really?
That land was one of the first purchases of what
we call the LCHIP program. That's the New
Hampshire Land and Community Investment Program.
By now you all know that New Hampshire doesn't
believe in taxes, but they adopted a fee that
would go into a fund to preserve New Hampshire's
heritage. LCHIP is a dedicated fund, and one of
the purchases, one of the first purchases was
the Connecticut River headwaters area. Do you
really think that the citizens of this state are
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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going to roll over and say sure, private
corporation, take this land for your private
gain. New Hampshire doesn't spend money easily,
but when we do, we hold on to what we value.
We all know they want these towers. PSNH
is hoping to garner the rent from Hydro-Quebec.
That's really why there is no alternative plan.
It's not that we can't bury these lines. It's
that we won't even discuss it. Senator
Forrester spoke to you about the 361 Commission
yesterday. It only makes sense to explore and
cost out what burying would cost under the New
Hampshire energy corridor. You heard yesterday
what the estimate was for that to happen.
Instead, PSNH has just paid outrageous prices
for land hoping to get a clear path through the
top 40 miles, a path they were unable to achieve
and you'll hear more about that tomorrow.
The area I live in is a prime tourist area.
You're about to destroy that economic base.
When the fall foliage is at the peak we actually
have traffic jams. Leaf peepers are slower than
skiers. It's a fine thing. I mentioned that
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I'm on the Finance Committee. We need that 9
percent to fund our state.
Stop the project now. I'm not an
electrician. I am an educator. I do not know
the electrical aspect of this, but I do
recognize good thoughtful analysis when I see
it, and this application doesn't pass muster.
All I can say in closing is that you need to
send this back. We need to get our homework
done.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Susan. Next speaker, Linda Lauer.
LINDA LAUER: Thank you. I'm State
Representative Linda Lauer. I represent 8 towns
in Grafton County including the town of Easton
which is in the path of Northern Pass. I'm here
to represent my citizens, my constituents in the
town of Easton and northern New Hampshire who
say we don't want Northern Pass, and I'm also
asking that the Department of Energy protect the
public interest of our citizens by asking
Northern Pass to provide an accurate economic
impact statement so the communities at least
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know what the impact on our economy is going to
be.
Northern Pass's website boasts of injecting
$28 million in new tax revenues to communities,
county and the state. If you look at that data
the first problem that pops up is that only
includes the revenue that the communities would
get from Northern Pass. It doesn't include the
revenue that we'll lose from the loss of
property value adjacent to it. The Appalachian
Mountain Club has stated that 95,000 acres in
the State of New Hampshire will be impacted
visually by Northern Pass as is currently
proposed. That doesn't include the northern
most 16 miles which we're just recently
rerouted. Now, if they put 125 foot towers in
front of my house, I guarantee you I'm going to
ask for a reduction in property value. So
claiming that you're going to get $28 million in
new tax revenues, first of all, doesn't count
the decrease in tax revenue that we should
expect.
The other problem bothers me even more and
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that's the fact that any company can appeal
their assessment and if they're successful they
reduce their tax payments and it's already
happened. PSNH, right now, one of Northern
Pass's real tight bedfellows, has filed suits to
change the assessment formula in 31 local towns
including my hometown of Bath, and if they're
successful the assessment formula will change
and the assessment on those towers will go to
zero within 25 years. So the $28 million in new
tax revenues, it's offset today with permanent
reductions in the value of adjacent properties
and it disappears in 25 years. So I would ask
that as a sponsor of a state bill that would
require New Hampshire site committees to
thoroughly evaluate economic impacts on affected
communities, I would ask that the Department of
Energy do the same and require a similar
independent, unbiased and accurate economic
impact study for the Northern Pass project on
the affected communities. I think that will
help us determine if Northern Pass really is in
the best interests of our citizens.
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
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MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Linda. Next speaker. John Colony.
JOHN COLONY: My name is John Colony. I'm
a member of the Zoning Board in Sugar Hill.
Thank you for holding these public meetings and
for making them as accessible as they are. Two
nights ago members of the Nashua and Manchester
Chambers of Commerce spoke in favor of the
towers. That is in favor of the current
proposal from Northern Pass. I wonder what
their reasoning is. They must know it is bad
business to allow such flagrant damage to be
inflicted on the greater part of the state.
They must know it is reprehensible to cause
undoubtedly serious, long-lasting irreversible
damage and impoverishment of the entire Coos
County, but these chambers are okay with that.
So if there are any members of those chambers
here tonight, I yield the remainder of my time
to them if they will explain your reasoning. If
any friends of those chambers are here, and can
explain the reasoning, I yield my time to them
if they will explain their reasoning. There is
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no good reason for Northern Pass. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
John. Neal Kurk.
SPEAKER: He spoke in Concord.
MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. I have
Andrew Hosmer. Are there any other officials
that are in the room? There's one. Another
one, two. Come on up. Three? Okay. Go ahead.
REBECCA BROWN: Thank you. I'm Rebecca
Brown, and I'm speaking with several hats this
evening. First I want to say that as someone
who spoke here two and a half years ago it's so
great to see many of us here back again and a
whole lot more people here than were here two
and a half years ago so thank you. So I am
proud to represent the North Country, five North
Country towns in the New Hampshire legislature.
One of these towns is Sugar Hill which has the
power line running through it and Sugar Hill
residents are united in their opposition to this
project. I'm also on the Board of Directors of
the North Country Council which is the North
Country's regional Planning Commission. The
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council has taken the position against Northern
Pass's proposal based on the fact that every
single Selectboard in affected towns has voted
against Northern Pass. I'm also the founder and
director of the Ammonoosuc Conservation Trust
which is the region's land conservancy. ACT has
many lands and many land-owning members who are
affected by the power line route. ACT in an
intervenor opposed to the project. I'm speaking
today as a State Representative and for ACT. A
value of many of my constituents and the trust's
mission is to conserve the working landscapes of
the North Country. Our land and our people are
our greatest assets. Our place is as much a
reflection of our people as we are a reflection
of our land. From our great Connecticut River
which is an American Heritage River and which
this project would affect to our rugged
mountains and to the crown jewel of our region,
the White Mountain National Forest which the
project will affect. In between are the private
forest and farms that have been worked and
tended for generations which are the heart of
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our communities and which the project would
obviously affect. Our working landscape should
support renewable clean energy that goes to
power our region and it does through hydropower,
a growing number of solar installations, wind
and biomass. Many of our region see the economy
in part based on renewable energy. Northern
Pass does nothing to advance this. In fact, it
would do a lot more to make it difficult, both
by affecting the market and by creating an
enormous scar on the land that draws so many
people here.
I ask the DOE to consider the no build
option. I believe that is the proper one for
our environment and also consider burying the
lines. As a legislator I've asked Dartmouth
College to do a cost/benefit analysis of burying
the lines. They will focus on three key
factors. First, how many jobs would be created
for New Hampshire workers compared to aerial
lines. Second, what would be the investment
opportunity for New Hampshire businesses on
related technology and services; and third, what
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would be the competitive advantage to New
Hampshire businesses for a more dependable power
source than aerial lines that are subject to
storms and outages. With the Department's
permission I'd like to give you that analysis
when it's completed later this year and thank
you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Rebecca. Our next speaker?
MARGO CONNORS: My name is Margo Connors.
I'm representing the Sugar Hill Selectboard and
the Sugar Hill Conservation Commission. I also
testified in 2011. On March 8th, 2011 the town
of Sugar Hill unanimously voted to oppose
Northern Pass at its annual town meeting. The
town of Sugar Hill believes that there will be
serious negative environmental and economic
impacts for all of its citizens if the proposed
Northern Pass transmission line is built through
our community. We ask that you give serious
consideration to our concerns in order to
provide Sugar Hill and the State of New
Hampshire the fullest protection possible from
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the EIS phase of the permitting process. The
Selectboard and Conservation Commission have
examined the proposed Northern Pass route in
relation to our natural resource inventory,
conservation plan and revised master plan.
We believe that the following factors
should be studied by the Department of Energy.
One, the inherent physical changes brought by
towers lines and clearing of the right-of-way.
Two, the deleterious effects towers will have on
scenic areas and viewsheds. Three, the
degradation of property values and the resulting
loss of tax revenues. This has already occurred
in our town even with the idea of towers going
through. The assault on our town's conservation
land, water resources, wildlife, forest and
farmland. The impact on tourism that hulking
towers would have looming over our historic Main
Street. We ask that you evaluate the impact of
the proposed line on our recreational trails,
lands and water ways that are currently used by
numerous groups and year-round tourists.
Recreation land is one of the major facets of
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our economy so we specifically ask that you
assess the visual and auditory impact of these
proposed lines.
We urge the Department of Energy to
carefully look at these issues and consider
alternatives to the proposed Northern Pass
project, either a no-build option or the
complete burial of the line along straight
transportation corridors. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker?
LINDA MASSIMILLA: Good evening. My name
is Linda Massimilla. I represent the towns of
Littleton and Bethlehem. I hadn't planned on
speaking tonight so lucky for you I have no
notes. I just wanted to make the comment. If
Northern Pass, the Northeast Utilities can
sweeten the pot by offering to put millions of
dollars into a fund to create new jobs for North
Country residents, then my question is why
couldn't they take some of that money and apply
it to burying the lines and using the rest of
their money for their North Country job
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creation? So what I suggest is maybe Northern
Pass dig a little deeper to help dig themselves
out of this monstrous abomination. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Linda. Any other elected officials who want to
speak? Last chance. We're going to go into our
preregistered list. I'm going to call up a Luke
and Cornelia Lorentzen?
CORNELIA LORENTZEN: I got the kid --
thanks for letting us go. I got the kid, he's
really with me. So we live in Sugar Hill. My
name is Cornelia Lorentzen. Luke, he lives
there, too, and we are against the Northern Pass
as it is proposed today. Nice to see all that
orange out there. Like you to consider the
opinions of the people who live in the places
that this is specifically going to affect and
that's us. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Cornelia and Luke. I have an Evalyn Merrick,
and I'm also going to call up a Jessica Houle.
JESSICA HOULE: Hi. My name is Jessica
Houle, and I'm a 8th grader from Littleton, New
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Hampshire. I have been recently learning about
the Northern Pass project in my Social Studies
class. From my research I have learned that
this project does not benefit New Hampshire and
that I am against it. Some of the reasons why
I'm against this project is possible negative
health effects, damaging our views and
environment, damming up the water destroying
habitat and fish migration. Would you want your
child to have leukemia? Not just cancer but
nausea, vertigo, metallic taste and light
flashes. Studies show that there are possible
risks of leukemia from radiation in children.
These possible health problems could happen to
anyone that lived close enough to the towers.
Not only is our health being destroyed but also
our beautiful views. If this project proceeds
all we will see are these huge electric towers.
Tourists will not come to our area anymore, and
this will directly affect our economy. Already
natural disasters, weather and economic
recessions affect our tourism on a yearly basis.
Now we want a permanent structure in place that
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will impact our tourism daily? Tourism is a
major source of income for New Hampshire and we
need to focus on attracting more people to our
area, not pushing them away. I really care
about the animals and do not want their homes
being destroyed by excavators in the
construction process and especially endangered
species like the golden eagle and common
nighthawk. Every day animals homes are being
destroyed. We need to actually take a look at
that. It is like us living on hold. How can
this get better if we're going to construct
these towers. Whether these lines are buried or
above ground, the habitats are going to be
destroyed by the construction and ongoing
maintenance of the new line. I'm asking the
Department of Energy to reject this application
and realize that this project will impact us
more than what we were told. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Jessica. Next speaker, Evalyn Merrick. I'm
sorry.
EVALYN MERRICK: I used up 2 minutes of my
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3 just getting up here.
MODERATOR: I'm now going to call some
additional names so we can fill out our on deck
circle now that it's clear so Kris Pastoriza,
Jim Dannis, Sandy Dannis, Linda Upham-Bornstein,
Susan Schibanoff, Deborah Warner.
EVALYN MERRICK: Thank you. For the
record, I am Evalyn Merrick, former State
Representative from Coos County. I am
expressing the following concern on behalf of
myself and also that of Michael Ransmeier who
could not be here today. Michael is an attorney
who practices in Littleton and is the chairman
of the Board of Selectmen for the town of
Landaff which is not on the primary Northern
Pass proposed right-of-way but would be bisected
by Northern Pass's proposed alternative route if
it has to go around the National Forest.
It is our understanding that there is an
existing DC line owned by National Grid starting
from the same headquarter substation in Quebec
and running down the western side of the
Connecticut River all the way through Vermont
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and Massachusetts into central Connecticut. It
is allegedly not being fully used and would be a
far more logical alternative as a power supply
route than compounding the negative
environmental and economic impacts of creating a
second parallel power line along the route just
15 to 20 miles to the east. The real underlying
reason why Northeast Utilities which owns PSNH
wants the new Northern Pass route is so that
PSNH can receive the transmission fees for
running power over its New Hampshire lines. It
should not be the responsibility of New
Hampshire citizens or the DOE to underwrite an
effort to prop up a failing PSNH. If the DOE
simply told Northern Pass that the negative
environmental impacts for its plan could be
largely eliminated if it simply worked out an
arrangement of National Grid to use it's ROW,
the problem might largely be solved. Thank you
very much.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Evalyn, and thank you, Jessica, from earlier.
Kris?
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SPEAKER: Can I pass my comments to someone
else?
MODERATOR: No. We could add them at the
back of the list though. That would leave us
Jim Dannis.
JIM DANNIS: So I'd like to follow up on
the topic of greed. Sandy and I spent a couple
of hours reading one of the Northern Pass's most
recent filing with Tom Wagner. It was the
filing asking for a permit to cross through the
White Mountain National Forest. Northern Pass
as usual made a number of statements that we
found flatly misleading to downright ridiculous
and they really all center on this theme of
greed so Northern Pass says we can't bury the
lines on I-93 to avoid the National Forest
because it will cost too much. Sandy and I did
a little illustration to help you understand how
ridiculous that statement is. Northern Pass is
guaranteed a return -- excuse me. Northeast
Utilities is guaranteed a return as owner of the
Northern Pass of 12.56 percent. 12.56 percent
on the money it puts into the project. I don't
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know about you, I don't get 12.56 percent on
anything. Let's look what that adds up to.
Northeast Utilities will make a profit margin, a
guaranteed profit margin of $88 million a year.
$88 million a year. So we said to ourselves,
what if Northern Pass did something really nice
or Northeast Utilities. What if they said we'll
just take a 3 percent discount on that 12
percent profit. We'll just take nine percent.
If they took 9 percent for just three to 5 years
that would free up up to $100 million so if they
just said we only need 9 percent, we don't need
12.56 percent, they free up enough money to bury
the lines for the entire route around the White
Mountain National Forest. I ask you, is the
White Mountain National Forest worth a three
percent discount off Northern Pass's profits? I
think it is. When they tell you they cannot
afford to bury the lines, just remember, it's a
lie. It's not true. And in terms of the
scoping process, we say we have economic experts
looking at this, we don't need economic experts.
We need to have financial experts. We need
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somebody on Wall Street to give a report to the
DOE and the U.S. Forest Service saying you know
what? A nine percent profit margin for
Northeast Utilities is perfectly fine, thank
you. They can afford to bury the lines.
SANDY DANNIS: I'll save three minutes so
we can go on to Susan. That's all right. Bury
the lines.
MODERATOR: I don't know where I stopped at
calling names right now so Deborah Warner.
Dolly McPhaul. Dave Dobbins. Nancy Martland.
LINDA UPHAM-BORNSTEIN: My name is Linda
Upham-Bornstein. I have a Ph.D. in American
legal history and I am a resident of Lancaster
and I object to the proposed transmission lines
for both personal and public policy reasons. On
a personal level, my husband and I own a
historic home on Mt. Prospect Road in Lancaster.
Ironically, the farm was once owned by the Weeks
family whose efforts to preserve the northern
forest culminated in the passage of the 1911
Weeks Act. The proposed transmission lines will
run roughly parallel to and approximately two
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tenths of a mile from the eastern border of our
property. If these very large transmission
towers are installed, they will be a scar on the
landscape of the White Mountains and will ruin
the beautiful view that we have of those
mountains.
The construction of this transmission line
and the resulting significant and adverse impact
on our viewshed will also substantially reduce
the market value of our property. The Northern
Pass project will have a direct impact on our
property and other residential properties within
the Northern Pass viewshed. The diminution of
real estate tax revenues generated by the
affected properties will likely offset much if
not all of the temporary, and I emphasize
temporary, real estate tax revenues generated by
the Northern Pass project.
On a public policy level the Northern Pass
as proposed will have a negative impact on the
historic, cultural and environmental landscapes
of New Hampshire. The transmission project will
also be antithetical to the tourist and
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recreational industries that are Coos County's
that tonight's scoping meeting is held at a
hotel that markets and celebrates the very
landscape this project will project will
permanently scar. Moreover the project will
severely impact hundreds and more likely
thousands of historic buildings and cultural
landscapes that once lost will never be
recovered. Furthermore, the proposed
transmission line is inconsistent with New
Hampshire's Scenic Road statute and Cultural
Bylaws statute. The New Hampshire Supreme Court
observed that the purpose of the scenic road
status is to encourage tourist attractiveness of
our scenic roads and to protect the scenic
beauty of our state. Mt. Prospect Road is one
of five designated scenic roads in Lancaster.
It likewise seems incongruous that I must obtain
permission to cut down trees in my yard and that
an out-of-state utility will be allowed to eject
enormous and ugly towers in plain view. The
Northern Pass will adversely impact New
Hampshire's scenic byways and undermine the
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purpose of this statute. Therefore, as a tax
paying citizens, I request, no, in fact, I
demand the Presidential Permit for the Northern
Pass project as proposed be denied. The DOE is
charged with preparing an Environmental Impact
Statement that examines all these issues and I
exhort them to include all multiple activities,
specifically burying the line and no build
alternative.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Linda. Our next speaker. Susan Schibanoff.
The floor is yours.
SUSAN SCHIBANOFF: Thank you, George. My
name is Susan Schibanoff. I live in Easton.
The White Mountain National Forest borders our
property. The PSNH right-of-way crosses our
land and connects with a temporary special use
corridor in the forest. Whatever affects the
forest directly affects us in Easton and in
nearby towns and vice-versa. We are good
neighbors. Good neighbors look out for one
another. And in that spirit, Mr. Wagner, I
suggest that there are three meticulously
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researched documents that you consider, that you
should consider as you decide whether to issue
the special use permit that Northern Pass needs
to cross the forest, and I respectfully request
the DOE to include all three in the study.
The first document is the EIS prepared in
1978 by the State DOT to evaluate whether the
route that Northern Pass currently wants to use
to cross the forest was suitable to put a road
through. The State's conclusion was no. Any
infrastructure here would, quote, destroy the
near natural and solitude qualities of a major
portion of the White Mountain National Forest
through which it would pass.
The second document I'd ask you to look at
is the EIS that the DOE prepared in 1978 to '80.
That's the DOE. To evaluate whether this route
was suitable for a transmission line to bring
power down from a hydroelectric project in
Maine. The DOE's conclusion? No. Colocation
of overhead towers in this narrow transmission
corridor would cause severe defects on the
aesthetics of the environmental setting, on
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recreation, on community values and character
and on property values.
The third document is the EIS that the DOE
prepared in 1986 as part of its study of a
direct current transmission project with towers
lower than those proposed by Northern Pass.
Again, the DOE said no, don't locate them here
in the corridor that Northern Pass now wants to
use. It would cause severe land use conflicts.
Three EISs have already been prepared on
Northern Pass's currently proposed route. All
have said no. Mr. Mills, please include these
three EIS studies in the scope of your work.
Let's not reinvent the wheel that already has a
flat tire. Enough is enough. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Susan. Or next speaker, Deborah Warner?
DEBORAH WARNER: I have a poster that has,
can you see it over here? Actually might move
up a little bit. Up higher. Thank you. I'm
Debbie Warner from Littleton. In my business
I'm a psychologist. My business serves Coos and
Grafton, and I would like to welcome the members
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of the scoping committee to New Hampshire and
especially to our beautiful North Country.
Thank you for coming. I very much appreciate
the privilege of you coming to hear our voices
in person and it's just a privilege to have this
happen here. Thank you so much, everyone, for
being here.
I want to give you the results of a study
that I did last summer. It was a survey that I
did in asking people what do you like about the
North Country, and I just wrote down what people
said. And as you can see, the top two thirds of
the people said it's the mountains and the
forests and half of the people said it's people
here. These are very important aspects of the
North Country and as I listen to people talking
about it, I notice that it's not that they like
the North Country. We love the North Country.
You can go all around the state and you're not
going to find people who just love, Milford,
maybe? I don't know. And as I talk to people
around the state they say, you know, people
don't have the kind of passion about where they
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live as we do here, and the top thing that
people mentioned right off the top of their
heads is the mountains and the forests. And I
just want to bring that forward to us that it's
not just sentimentality. It's important to us.
The mountains and the forest are as important
and even sometimes more important than the
people who are our main reason for being here
and usually where people are. There are many
other things that I did calculate on this list
and I just wanted to bring those two forward to
you briefly as the top items that people
mentioned.
I want to turn this over and give you how
they interplay with our economics. Turn this
over. Mark is helping me. I appreciate his
kindness. Way up high. There you go. Thank
you. Thank you so much. And over here so these
gentlemen can see.
In terms of the economy there are several
different markets that we are affected by.
There's the external market which is where we
produce things and we send them out elsewhere
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and money comes to us. This is a very good kind
of portion of our market. And at this point --
oh, I didn't realize I had a particular time
limit. I'll speak very quickly then.
This portion of the market has been
terribly depressed as the mills have gone. We
also have the destination market where people
from elsewhere come here and they bring their
money and spend it and then go home. And as you
see on the top, this is our depiction of our
results of what we love here and the mountains
and forests are very, very important to us and
that is what we have for them to come to. And
as our external market has been so depressed,
then we have the destination market as our main
reliant market force sector and it's very
important to us. This would greatly affect us,
and we know 95,000 acres would be affected.
People come here from all around the
Metropolitan surroundings, Boston and Montreal
as well as the prime destination for foreigners
to come. I have run out of time. I appreciate
that very much. Thank you.
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MODERATOR: Thank you, Deborah, and your
assistant Mark. You are the first entrants in
today's Ross Perot presentation style award so
we'll see if there are other props that are
brought along. Our next speaker is Dolly
McPhaul.
DOLLY MCPHAUL: Hi, my name is Dolly
McPhaul, and I'm from Sugar Hill. There are
lots of things about the Northern Pass that
anger me and sponsors as well but I want to
address the Department of Energy tonight and
their lack of integrity, their blatant bias for
Public Service of New Hampshire. It's as the
two of them are joined together and they are
going to ram their way through New Hampshire
regardless of what the citizens want. They
don't seem to care that it's going to affect
people's property values. Sometimes those
property values reflect their retirement money.
They don't see seem to care that they're going
to ruin our beautiful views. They don't seem to
care that they are going to hurt our tourism
business and will have job losses from that.
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And they don't seem to care about kids that go
to Profile Junior Senior High School and will be
spending daily right next to those towers with
the possibility of childhood leukemia. Their
bias goes on to their accepting the first permit
that PSNH asked for. They didn't have a route,
but the DOE accepted it anyway. They allowed
PSNH to select the company to do the EIS
studies. They allowed PSNH the right to
contribute language to the contract written.
They allowed PSNH to have the DOE
representatives trespass on New Hampshire
residents' properties to do their studies
regardless of the property owners' disapproval
and without a legitimate route, and they allowed
studies to continue which were supposed to have
citizens inputs but guess what? They forgot to
tell the citizens that those studies had
started. So the DOE to me has exemplified a
blatant bias for Public Service of New
Hampshire. Because that first application
failed, they applied number two. Again, they
don't have a legitimate route, and subsequently
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the four-person delegation to Washington lodged
an objection, but the Department of Energy being
sort of like a little lapdog to PSNH they just
followed them around and let them do whatever
they want so they ignored that and the project
was allowed to continue.
Then they failed to put on their permit
something that was required, listing
alternatives, and those alternatives were not
put on. Even though it was a requirement they
allowed the application to go forward. I'm
currently wondering if PSNH is looking at
another route coming down Vermont, maybe coming
into New Hampshire at Littleton and then going
on their rights-of-way. If that's the case are
we going to have to go through these charades
again or are they going to try to slip it in
under their second application for a permit. In
my mind, unethical but a real possibility. So
in closing I would like to say that the people
in New Hampshire have had enough, the Department
of Energy should listen to the people, and if
they grant this permit, they should be aware
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that the people most very likely will ask for an
investigation of the people involved and the
process involved at the DOE. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Dolly. Be careful with the woo-hoos. I did
hear one. Somebody tried sneaking it in. Our
next speaker is Dave Dobbins. By the way, the
Moderator is going to apologize because right
now we are at the break point that I had
originally set. To keep things moving, and if
Cynthia agrees, we're just going to go straight
through to probably 7 o'clock to 7:15. Dave,
come on up.
DAVE DOBBINS: That's quite a bit to
follow, I think. Before I actually start my
remarks I actually wanted to touch on protocols
for our meetings if I could just for a brief
moment, Mr. Moderator.
MODERATOR: Is this being counted as your
3?
DAVE DOBBINS: No. It has to do with
benefit to our audience.
MODERATOR: Sure. Go ahead.
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DAVE DOBBINS: Thank you. We had a little
issue last night in Plymouth because some
members of the audience had wanted to pose
questions to the panel and that's not part of
the protocol. You had explained that if you
wanted questions about the project answered,
that there are developer representatives from
Northern Pass available to us, and I wanted to
ask a couple of quick things. One is will they
be available for questions in Colebrook tomorrow
night?
MODERATOR: Yes. As far as we know. Yes.
I can't control it. Yes.
DAVE DOBBINS: That kind of gave me a great
idea. It's like, you know, we have big crowds
coming into these meetings. How about if we
just adjusted the meeting format slightly, we
have the developers come up that first half
hour, address the entire audience questions and
concerns, and I think that would go a long way
to help answering some of those concerns and
hearing en masse what the developer has to say
about so many questions we have. I'd like to
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know if that would be possible for tomorrow
night.
MODERATOR: We will take it under
advisement. Let's just be clear. We got a lot
of comments last night in Plymouth. We made
adjustments to our process today. We'll take
your information under advisement and again,
tomorrow, the times are set so we only have the
same amount of time. Obviously, the number
people who registered to present comments is not
insignificant so we'll take it under advisement
and see what we can do.
SPEAKER: Good idea.
MODERATOR: Thank you. Are you going to
use your three minutes now?
DAVE DOBBINS: I would like to, yes.
MODERATOR: Okay.
DAVE DOBBINS: Thank you.
MODERATOR: And you're not going to ask any
questions, correct?
DAVE DOBBINS: Correct.
MODERATOR: Thank you.
DAVE DOBBINS: Good evening. My name is
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Dave Dobbins. I'm a resident of Gilford, New
Hampshire. Our town as you all probably know is
not on any of the proposed primary routes of
which there is one and since of course there's
no alternate route we're not on that route
either. You know, for that reason alone I
personally believe and I did communicate this to
Mr. Mills that I think the application should
have been rejected as invalid and incomplete and
would have prevented us from being here this
round at the moment. That didn't happen so
we're all here. So what I'd like to just
comment on is when the -- let me put these aside
maybe and try this. When this project was first
promoted by the developers they used this tag
line. A unique opportunity in time. And you
know, I've been thinking about that and it's
like, you know, that really was an unique
opportunity in time. For them. They announced
it at a time when, of course, New Hampshire
residents didn't know much about the project and
its whole impact on the State of New Hampshire.
And it also came at a time when this concept of
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a participant-funded transmission line is new to
the State of New Hampshire. And because of
that, it was a time and still is in which the
state of New Hampshire doesn't have adequate
legislation, adequate energy policies to
actually address this type of a for-profit
commercial venture coming in to deliver
transmission of electricity through our state to
another state, even if some small piece of it
makes a return loop some day.
So what I think is the applicants had an
open-ended period of time. You know, their
initial concept for participant funded was
approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission back in 2009. Yes. Before you folks
heard about it. And then, of course, we all
know they filed the original one on October 14th
of 2010. They supplemented that in 2011 in
February and in April and now here we are with
an amendment to that original application which
seems to have this odd status of yes, it's been
filed, it's kind of under review, we're thinking
about some other adjustments and oh, look, here
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they are.
So what's me point? My point is reject
what was submitted and give the State of New
Hampshire the time and respect that it deserves
to enable us to let our represented officials
develop the right legislation to protect our
state, and it doesn't mean that some day some
transmission line may need to be built but let's
build it inside the framework that New Hampshire
citizens and its leaders have decided is right
for our state. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Dave. Moderator wants to apologize to the rest
of the crowd and the audience and the speakers.
Technically, I did give Dave more time than
three minutes. I was kind of hoping he was
going to thank us for changing today's format
but anyhow. Our next speaker is going to be
Nancy Martland. I've got on deck if you could
come up, please, Henrietta Moineau, Rebecca
More, and Eliot Wessler. The floor is yours.
NANCY MARTLAND: Thank you. I'm Nancy
Martland. I live in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire.
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Many of you know that I work closely with Dolly
McPhaul, but I promise you we did not plan our
testimony together. Good evening to Mr. Mills
and Mr. Wagner. I'm very pleased to have this
chance to look you in the eye and speak to you
face to face about what concerns me regarding
Northern Pass. My comments do focus on the
permitting process. This project involves real
people who will suffer real damage. It is not
just a line on a map leading from impoundment
dams in Quebec to dollar signs in Connecticut.
Take a good look at us. We are the ones
you will injure through a faulty process. We
deserve the most rigorous, above-board scrutiny
possible. No excuses. This is a matter of the
public trust. Mr. Mills, I am sorry to say much
of the public has little if any confidence in
the permitting process. The United States
government owes New Hampshire a scrupulously
open, fair and exacting process, not a rubber
stamp affair controlled by the applicant. I
have not observed those qualities to date. What
I have seen looks more like an inside game.
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Here are some of the things that shake our
confidence. Allowing this permitting process to
go forward when the application was suspended
and right now when it is incomplete. Appearing
to fast-track these hearings with the minimum
possible abbreviated public notice period,
apparently ignoring the objections of our entire
federal legislative delegation to facets of this
project. Allowing portions of the permitting
process to go forward behind closed doors that
shut out the public but not Northern Pass
representatives such as the ongoing Section 106
process. The impression of interlock between
applicant and permitting agency. At least one
high level Northern Pass employee whose job is
to further this application is a former high
level DOE employee. And finally, allowing DOE
contractors on our land without our permission
or even advance notice of their presence.
These are the kinds of things that erode
the public trust. As a speaker noted last night
in Plymouth, this is tragic. I call upon you to
do better moving forward. Mr. Wagner, there is
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no overriding public benefit to this project.
Nothing about this project justifies the assault
on a cherished White Mountain National Forest
landscape that so many have worked so hard to
acquire, protect and care for. I urge you in
the strongest possible terms to take your duty
as steward of this forest seriously. Thank you
very much.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Nancy. You are? Henrietta.
HENRIETTA MOINEAU: Henrietta Moineau of
Lancaster, New Hampshire. Because my time to
speak is so limited, I will state the barebones
reasons why the four electric power companies in
Canada and the United States should be denied a
permit for Northern Pass. Number one, 33 towns
up and down the Connecticut River have said no
to project. Number 2, if Northern Pass gets the
Presidential Permit to run their electric lines,
I was told they would be overhead electric lines
at the recent open house at Cabin Inn through
ten miles of the White Mountain National Forest.
Where and when will it stop. I foresee the
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eventual end of our national and state parks.
Number 3, Northern Pass claims it will improve
our tax base. They don't mention the loss of
tax money for northern New Hampshire when people
sell their homes at a loss to move away from the
ugly and dangerous and I'll explain dangerous
later, landscape. Number 4, one bit of
information in the newspaper stated that Canada
has developed a, quote, huge, well-planned
facility that has expansion capability, end
quote. This is only the first phase, folks.
Number 5, Northern Pass is just that. Using New
Hampshire as a conduit for its electricity. New
Hampshire will receive no benefit. Number 6,
Northern Pass claims southern New England needs
the electricity. It does not. Why do I keep
getting propaganda letters from North American
Power located in Norwalk, Connecticut, offering
me cheaper electric rates than PSNH? Rhode
Island doesn't need it either. Rhode Island is
setting up wind power on Block Island which is
12 miles off the coast and running the electric
lines under the ocean to Quonset Point on
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Narraganset Bay. It will generate enough power
for 17,000 homes in one year. And last, number
7, at the Department of Energy meeting here in
2011, a man showed the crowd a one-foot thick
collection of research papers that told of the
deadly electromagnetic fields created above or
below the ground lines. That is, they cause
cancer and other medical problems. 33 years ago
I noticed there were no homes, no businesses, no
farms or anything near the massive towers in
Quebec province on my way to Montreal.
In plain and simple language there is no
need for Northern Pass and we New Hampshire
Americans don't want it above or below the
ground. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Henrietta. Our next speaker?
REBECCA MORE: Rebecca More. Mr. Mills and
colleagues, I am Rebecca Weeks Sherill More,
Ph.D. I speak on behalf of the Weeks Lancaster
Trust which owns over 700 acres in Lancaster
where my family have farmed since 1786. Here in
New Hampshire we have a tradition that
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conservation of the environment is plain common
sense. It ensures our natural resources for the
future. As a result, the Weeks Lancaster Trust
has filed a Motion to Intervene against the
request of Northern Pass for a Presidential
Permit. We urge the Department of Energy to
recommend that the proposed transmission lines
be buried along existing transportation
corridors. The Northern Pass would degrade the
quality of the environment in this region and
have a negative impact on the ability of
visitors to understand why we are stewards of
the natural world.
Over the past century, people in this area
have worked with federal, state and local
agencies to preserve the White Mountain National
Forest, Weeks State Park in Lancaster, Franconia
Notch Parkway and many conservation easements.
In 1911 my great grandfather, Congressman John
Wingate weeks sponsored the Weeks Act enabling
federal forestry conservation. The act
protected the headwaters of New England's major
rivers through the creation of the White
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Mountain National Forest. Those rivers power
industry in all six states. Today the forest
draws millions of visitors to enjoy clean air,
clear water and healthy outdoor recreation. The
proposed transmission towers would convey the
message to the world that in the US above ground
high voltage power lines vulnerable to solar and
ice storms are more important than the
environment. In 1941 Weeks's children gave his
estate on Mount Prospect for a State Park
dedicated to teaching about forestry
conservation. Visitors enjoyed the view of the
region while learning about the reclamation and
conservation of lands damaged in the 19th
century by the timber industry. The Northern
Pass towers would degrade both the view and the
learning experience at Weeks State Park. Today
you drove through the Franconia Notch state
parkway to reach Whitefield. In the 1960s
Interstate 93 threatened the Notch's fragile
environment. It was saved by a broad consortium
including my grandfather, former Secretary of
Congress, Sinclair Weeks. Such efforts
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replicated by many others across New Hampshire
and the US demonstrate the mutually beneficial
partnership between citizens and the federal
government. In closing, the Northern Pass could
demonstrate that a profit-making corporation can
model safe, public-spirited energy transmission
and preserve the valuable beauty of New
Hampshire by burying the lines.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Rebecca. Last speaker before our break. Eliot
Wessler.
ELIOT WESSLER: Can I thank you in advance
for an extra minute?
MODERATOR: No. Excellent try.
ELIOT WESSLER: Thank you. My name is
Eliot Wessler. I'm a resident of Whitefield. I
recently retired after 28 years working as an
economist in the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission. Frankly, I am all in favor of
importing excess hydro from Quebec and to a New
England market. My objection to this project is
that it will result in a massive imbalance
between those that benefit and those that bear
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the cost. In a nutshell, this project as
proposed will create a huge monetary windfall
for Hydro-Quebec and its ratepayers while New
Hampshire residents bear all the environmental
costs. Northern Pass counts the benefits to New
Hampshire residents, and some of these benefits
in fact probably will flow to them even if
Northern Pass greatly exaggerates them, but in
sheer size these meager benefits are positively
dwarfed by the potential benefits to HQ and it's
ratepayers. HQ will be able to sell up to
10,000 gigawatt hours per year of excess hydro.
This would represent a windfall for HQ and its
ratepayers of as much as $400 million per year
and that's net of HQ cost and net of Northern
Pass's transmission charges. This works out to
$16 billion in nominal dollars over the 40-year
term of the contract. That's what we economists
call a whole lot of rent. And I also say God
bless capitalism and God bless HQ. Let them
capture as much of those rents as they can. But
PSNH is a homegrown utility. It needs to do a
better job of representing the people it serves.
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And DOE is our watchdog over this proposal.
It's DOE's job to focus not only on the
environmental benefits that may flow from this
project but on the costs that New Hampshire
residents will bear and how the applicants can
best mitigate these costs.
When asked about undergrounding the lines
Northern Pass always seems to respond in the
same way. That undergrounding is expensive and
then there's dead silence. Well, yes, it is
expensive, but with 400 million for year in the
rents it's my strong intuition that there's more
than enough money sloshing around in this deal
to cover any and all additional costs of
undergrounding the lines. And let's be clear,
that undergrounding the lines would not
eliminate all costs to New Hampshire residents,
but it would go a long way to mitigating those
costs. Undergrounding the lines would also go a
long way to dampening the opposition of this
project. Why then is Northern Pass so adverse
to even discussing undergrounding. The answer I
think is that they have boxed themselves in by
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cutting a bad deal with HQ in the first place to
sell transmission under a cost base rate when
they could have applied for, almost certainly
been granted approval by FERC, my former
employer, to sell transmission under a market
base rate. Market base rates would have allowed
them to capture at least some of the rents, but
this would also have exposed them to use some of
those rents in mitigating damages. So they took
the easy way out.
My view is that this process should be
frozen until Northern Pass gets off the dime and
gets serious about estimating the benefits and
costs of undergrounding the line. To sum up, I
encourage DOE to use the occasion of the EIS
scoping to determine that there is a massive
misallocation of benefits and costs inherent in
the deal between Northern Pass and HQ and force
Northern Pass to plan for the undergrounding of
any HVDC lines it wants to construct in New
Hampshire.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments, Eliot.
Reminder for all speakers that when Travis stands up,
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that's your three minutes and you are supposed to
stop. We're going to take our break right now. It
is, we'll call it 7:10. It will be a 15-minute break
so come back at 7:25. Just so we're clear on our on
deck circle when we get back and we can jump quickly
into this our first speaker will be Katie Rose, and
then we've got Margo Connors, Timothy Williams,
Frederick Von Karls and Roy Stever. Thank you.
(Recess taken)
(Message from Christopher Lawrence)
MODERATOR: Just so everyone knows, there's
been a request that we exceed the 3-minute rule
on Katie's song. Is that okay?
My name is Katie Rose, and I am a resident
here in Whitefield and we're disgusted we have
to be here two years later when we did this two
years ago.
(Singing) South of the Canada border, east
of Vermont countryside, some kind of natural
beauty and people came far and wide to view the
majesty of the land, one place untouched by
human hands, and those that called it home were
tougher than a granite stone.
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Then something come out of the darkness,
something of a dangerous kind. Trying to pass
legislation to run some high voltage power lines
with no concern for the local man whose great
grandfather had worked that land. The number
one priority was the profit of the company.
So live free or die, my friend. Live free
or die. This is the message that we send. Live
free or die.
Ads and propaganda littered with half
truths and lies. Anyone else might have been
fooled, but country folk can survive. They
wouldn't stand for the NPT depreciating their
property and making children unhealthy so more
people could waste electricity.
So live free or die, my friend. Live free
or die. This is the message that we send. Live
free or die.
Well, it's a sad story of oppression by a
powerful entity, but it's more about the human
spirit and people standing up for what they
believe and when our children are all grown and
having kids of their own they'll be thinking
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back to you and me and the spirit that kept them
free.
So live free or die, my friend. Live free
or die. This is the message that we send. Live
free or die, my friend. Live free or die. This
is the message that we send. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Katie Rose. Since
we let her slip on the time if anybody wants to
throw in a woo-hoo, go ahead. Felt good to get
that out, didn't it. Our next speaker, Timothy
Williams. Frederick Von Karls. Got an on deck
circle with nobody on it. How about a Roy
Stever. Jon Wilkinson. Kate Savage. The floor
is yours.
FREDERICK VON KARLS: Okay. Hi, everybody.
My name is Frederick Von Karls. I'm a clinical
psychologist with a Ph.D. in psychology, minor
degrees in sociology and anthropology,
especially cultural anthropology, so you might
think I care about people from some of the work
I've done and I do. So I intend to tell a story
here that might seem like it's coming out of
left field but over the time I have I think I'm
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going to bring it to centerfield.
I doubt many people in this audience know
about a people in Hudson's Bay named the Nunavut
Inuit people. Part of their problem is that
Quebec hydro has for quite a few years now been
dumping fresh water which is accumulated through
the spring runoff season in dams and reservoirs
and is often heated beyond the normal
environmental, let's say, proper levels and
dumping that into the Hudson's Bay at a rate
that is really quite extreme and this involves
millions of gallons of water that's released
during the high peak energy seasons of winter in
Quebec and the northeast American coast. So
what happens with that.
Well, what happens with it is that the
people who live on these little barrier islands
who are surrounded mainly by salinated frozen
water at the time of year when the release is
held is that their water and their environment,
the whole ecological environment they live in is
changed dramatically. Fresh water freezes at a
much more accelerated rate than salinated water.
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And also, it affects the environment in another
way that I'll just make a slight note to that I
think is a big environmental impact in that that
fresh water then floods the Labrador coast and
creates a problem of disturbing the deep water
flow in the Atlantic in terms of the
Gulfstream's proper functioning.
The main point is that these people
survival is based on the Arctic idler which is
dying at remarkably great rates because of the
resalinated water so their culture here is going
down the tines. What I want to say is they
didn't get a choice. They still don't have a
voice and that what I'm feeling here in New
Hampshire is we're given one option. We're not
given a variety of options. We don't have the
opportunity to negotiate directly with any
power, we have to rely on people that are here
representing us, and I hope they take it into
account the fact that what happens here will
have a drastic effect on people here. What
happens here will affect all the people that I
think care about their environment in northern
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New Hampshire which is a whole bunch of folks.
And in conclusion I'd like to say, and I'm not
kidding about this, that I think there will be a
lot of depression and some extra drastic
consequences in people's personal lives in New
Hampshire which wouldn't be addressed because we
don't have the money for mental health services
to cover that here. I'll leave with that.
ROY STEVER: Good evening my name is Roy
Stever. Thank you for the opportunity to come.
I'm chairman of the Easton, New Hampshire,
Conservation Commission. Our Commission is
currently working on habitat protection, local
agriculture, the preservation of cultural
records and energy conservation in the town of
Easton.
Easton Conservation Commission strongly
opposes Northern Pass. We believe that the
project would be a devastating effect on
wetlands, habitat, recreation, tourism, scenic
values and cultural resources. We have filed an
application as an intervenor in the EIS
proceedings. With limited time I will review
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our request to the panel first, then circle back
with supporting evidence. It seems to make
intelligent comments and we believe facts have
been withheld. Hopefully, I can prove that.
We asked that the following be delivered to
the Easton Conservation Commission 45 days prior
to the close of any EIS comment period.
1, answers to the questions that we
submitted to Northern Pass in July which I will
explain in a minute. 2, a fair and thorough
assessment of Easton's visual landscape
including more than 20 high-valued views. 3,
consideration of viable alternatives including
the no build option and burial along existing
transportation corridors. And 4, thorough study
of the impact of Northern Pass on the federally
and state protected Canada Lynx based on
confirmed tracks along Kinsman ridge this past
spring within miles of Northern Pass's proposed
route detailed in testimony just last night by
one of our Commission members, Steve Sabre, in
Plymouth. We would like USFS and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service with input from New Hampshire
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Fish & Game to examine the need to protect the
Kinsman ridge corridor involving Bob Pond and
land in Easton as critical habitat under all
existing laws, regulations and agreements
including the Endangered Species Act as amended
and the Canada Lynx Conservation Agreement. It
is impossible to comment on this project.
Our commission enjoys a strong working
relationship with the White Mountain National
Forest. We collaborate on activities such as
trail head improvement, cultural resources,
habitat improvement. Nearly 7 percent of Easton
lives within the forest. On June 10th members
of our commission met with Tom Wagner,
Supervisor of WMNF and members of his staff to
register our concerns, and we were cordially
received.
On July 2nd we issued an invitation to
Mr. Long, then President and COO of PSNH, to
meet with our Commission to discuss Northern
Pass. Mr. Martin Murray followed up, agreeing
to meet, even nominating dates in August. We
believe, however, that Mr. Murray changed his
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mind after we informed him that our meetings
would be open to the public per RSA 91 A. We
subsequently received a letter from Mr. Long
indicating that we could instead meet at some
point in the future prior to the State's site
evaluation committee proceedings and after a
finer level of engineering design work.
Mr. Long and Northern Pass have turned
their back on a respected New Hampshire
institution in the Conservation Commission. We
take our role seriously and approach Northern
Pass to ensure of our own objectivity as we do
in any project in our town. Mr. Long and
Northern Pass team continue to ignore our
request to meet and to date have answered none
of our 26 questions, something they did not do
at the open houses by the way. We believe the
actual cost for locating 2 new lines in Easton
would make them make the most expensive miles on
the entire project due to remote terrain and the
need for helicopters. We also believe the
environmental, recreational and personal impact
along this stretch would an among the highest on
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the route and we strongly advise consideration
of no build or burial along existing corridors.
We continue to believe that the project is
a private profit-laden insult to the residents
of Eaton, the people of New Hampshire, the
millions who have visited the White Mountain
National Forest from all over the word, the
100-year-old Weeks Act and the countless
dedicated New Hampshire citizens and elected
officials who over the centuries have had the
courage to say no.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Roy. Jon Wilkinson. And also like to invite up
Frank Lombardi, Winifred Ward, Richard Mallion.
JON WILKINSON: My name is Jon Wilkinson.
I'm a resident of Lancaster, New Hampshire.
Mr. Mills and all the DOE folks that are here
tonight, I welcome you to my beloved home State
of New Hampshire. I hope you're able to witness
and enjoy the unique and natural transformation
of one of New Hampshire's many splendors that is
occurring right now as we go from summer into
the spectacular array of fall colors.
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Now then, here we are after two years since
the last DOE scoping hearing and with only three
minutes to speak I have little time to cover all
the reasons that I and thousands of New
Hampshire residents, landowners, businesses,
elected officials and visitors to this state
steadfastly oppose the possible granting of
United States Presidential Permit to the
proposed Northern Pass project. This hearing
should not even be occurring since after being
granted an ample amount of additional time the
Northern Pass project has been unsuccessful in
acquiring uncontested contiguous 40-mile
northern corridor through New Hampshire and they
have not offered a valid alternative route
required for the permitting process.
Also there are questions concerning the
existing Public Service transmission easements
Northern Pass went to use to our south. As to
the intent and need when those easements were
originally conveyed many years ago versus a
possible adding and altering of the size and
type of structures within those easements,
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transferring of a different capacity of
electricity.
Northern Pass boasts many benefits about
their project. One of their claims about this
project is that it would be built at no cost to
taxpayers or customers. I totally disagree. If
this project is built as currently proposed it
would be an enormous cost to New Hampshire, land
owners, businesses and taxpayers. Destroying
views and lowering property land values is not a
win as they like to refer in their ads. It is
devastating personal loss in an unneeded
hardship.
I will close with a few questions. Who
needs the Northern Pass? The answer is not New
Hampshire. New Hampshire is an exporter of
electricity to the New England grid. Who needs
New Hampshire? The answer is Northern Pass.
Everyone please understand New Hampshire is the
only in the way of the Northern Pass. All they
want is to get their way through our state. Who
should have to sacrifice anything for the
Northern Pass to get their way through New
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Hampshire? The answer, no one. No one who
lives in New Hampshire, no one who owns land in
New Hampshire, and no one who comes to New
Hampshire to visit. Mr. Mills, I respectfully
ask you to deny the Presidential Permit
currently proposed by the Northern Pass project.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments.
Jon. Next speaker, Kate Savage.
KATE SAVAGE: Kate Savage from Jefferson.
We are all noticing the beauty of our trees
changing from green to orange. We have all
noticed the ugly green of greed and money and
the beauty of orange of opposition. We stand
united to speak loudly that we don't accept this
proposal for an extension cord running from
Canada through our state for the New England
power grid. The citizens of New Hampshire chose
to live free or die. The citizens of the North
Country choose to embrace a lifestyle of Yankee
ingenuity in keeping the natural elements real.
We choose to moderate our lives to responsively
consume our utilities which for New Hampshire
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has equaled a power surplus. With this surplus
we are not in need of this energy. Therefore,
with Northern Pass into the New England power
grid New Hampshire will not be taking the power.
In fact, per literature from the Hydro-Quebec
and the Northern Pass websites this power plant
is bidirectional. Once the power is into the
ISO-New England power grid Hydro-Quebec has one
of the first dibs on buying it back for its own
impending power droughts. To see this as a win
in any form for the State of New Hampshire is
blind. We have heard and read all of the many
promises. Of taxes, of 1200 jobs, of clean
energy. This scoping process that we are all a
part of requires alternative plans and paths to
the proposed line. Why then is the only
alternative listed that of crossing the
Connecticut Lakes headwaters which is legally
protected by a conservation easement. Should
not the alternative be a legal means such as
burial along existing right-of-way, highways,
corridors or perhaps on the transmission line
that exists across the Connecticut River in
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Vermont? Northern Pass could make friends with
its neighbors that appreciate the scenic beauty
of the state rather than obstructing it.
While the opposition for this plan has been
strongly held in the North Country we are
encouraged that our brothers and sisters of New
Hampshire speak out loudly and informed making
this a New Hampshire Pass issue. This is a burr
in our side, and we aren't taking it quietly.
When Northern Pass arrives at the threshold
of our great national and natural treasures it
is a game over for the North Country. This is
not a NIMBY, not in my backyard, issue. This is
an EB issue. Everybody's backyard. The White
Mountain National Forest and the Connecticut
Lakes Headwaters are both there as protected for
everyone. We enjoy and appreciate the natural
beauty that Mother Nature provided to all of us.
The audacity of these private companies to even
ask permission to use these places is out of
control. Northern Pass is for profit, and its
only basis is that it doesn't provide energy to
Connecticut, Rhode Island or Massachusetts out
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of kindness or goodness. It's for green profit.
That is offensive and underhanded to the
citizens of New Hampshire and we won't take
that. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Katie. Our next speaker, Frank Lombardi. I'd
also like to call up Brian Calloway, Michael
Phillips, Michael Dionne, Christopher Emmons.
FRANK LOMBARDI: My name is Frank Lombardi,
and I'm a lifelong resident of Whitefield, New
Hampshire. The Northern Pass has no defined
route and this application is incomplete. The
first hearing should not have taken place and
neither should these because Northern Pass does
not own the route they're proposing and continue
to miss multiple self-imposed deadlines on
producing an official route. The project does
not only affect New Hampshire residents but all
the U.S. states. Globally, terrorism is
focusing on soft targets such as the most recent
attack on the shopping mall in Kenya. Would
this power line with its remote geographic
location and regional importance be considered a
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soft target? I request that the Department of
Energy review with Homeland Security or the
appropriate authorities the possibility of this
power source becoming a potential terrorist
target. How can we rely on Canada for our power
and not consider how we will be securing it.
Next, Hydro-Quebec is a public utility
owned and operated by the Canadian government.
In 2003 Canada opposed the US decision to invade
Iraq. If the United States and Canadian
governments differ on future decisions, could
our electricity source be negatively impacted?
With such a strong dependence on Canada, would
we be able to make our own decisions without
asking for their input? On the same note,
purchasing this foreign energy from Canada is
like buying oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or
Iraq. We become dependent on them and in turn
these countries have political and economic
leverage over our foreign policies. Would we
just be exchanging our dependence on foreign oil
for foreign hydro?
My next question regards Northern Pass's
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hydropower undermining New Hampshire's already
producing power sources. There is no need for
additional power in New England as New England
is already in an overproducer of energy. Of
course, everyone wants cheaper prices, but
Northern Pass has not proven this to be a
benefit of the project. However, even if this
project could reduce energy prices, at what
cost. At the expense of our existing producers
in New Hampshire which sell to the same market
Northern Pass is aiming for? Additionally, will
Canadian hydropower imported from a foreign
country be required to meet the regulations of
New Hampshire's Public Utilities Commission or
will Hydro-Quebec set any price they want,
especially once our producers have been edged
out of the market. Our local wood chip plants
like Whitefield Power and Light and Pine Tree
Power already struggling as it is. These topics
need be addressed in DOE's study.
Lastly I'm asking the Department of Energy
pursue Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act
which requires that federal agencies take no
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action that would jeopardize any endangered or
threatened species or its habitat. United
States Code Title 16, chapter 31, 1531 requires
that the guidelines for the Endangered Species
Act be adhered to. The environmental effects of
this transmission line only be studied from
within the US boundaries but within Canada as
well. I respectfully request that you deny this
application because it is incomplete, it is not
in the interest of our national security, it
jeopardizes our political autonomy, it
undermines New Hampshire's already producing
power sources. It is detrimental to the area's
aesthetic values which may affect property
values and it may jeopardize endangered or
threatened species along the entire potential
project route, and I would like to submit this
written testimony for the official record.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Frank. To the audience, remember woo-hooing and
cat-calling is now out of bounds. Sorry.
Winifred Ward? Richard Mallion? Brian
Calloway. Michael Phillips. Michael Dionne.
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Mark McCullock. And Chelsea Petereit.
Hopefully, that's close. Ronnie Sandler. John
Jones. It's yours, Mark.
MARK MCCULLOCK: My name is Mark McCullock
from Stratford, New Hampshire. Last night in
Plymouth, Plymouth was the most intense scoping
hearing so far. The place was packed with folks
wearing orange and opposition speakers digging
deep into their souls trying to find a way to
make this DOE scoping process justifiably end.
Tom Wagner, the supervisor of White Mountain
National Forest, also had a personal friend
desperately come up to the mike and speak. He
stated that he stopped in to talk to Tom about
his concerns with the Northern Pass. He then
put his friend Tom on the spot as respectfully
as he knew how to in the public eye knowing that
his friend does have the authority to stop this
project from crossing White Mountain National
Forest. He was very troubled when Tom stated
something like this. I can't believe after all
these years trying to do the right thing for the
National Forest that I'm going to be judged by a
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single decision for the rest of my life
concerning this project. His friend then knew
what Tom's decision already was and at that
point so did everyone else, still respectfully
listening to the remaining speakers at this
hearing. Tom's sincere friend knew he may have
put his friendship on the line for this DOE
scoping process. He then respectfully pointed
his finger at Tom and basically from my
perspective told him this. You know in your
heart what the right decision is. Make that
right decision. Tom, your friend is right. You
do know what the right decision is. I have been
watching you throughout these scoping hearings
and how intently you have been listening to the
people in opposition to this project.
Sometimes, Tom, please trust me on this, you
have to put your ass out there on the line and
do what you feel and know is the right thing to
do. Yes, there may be some political negative
consequences for this, but as far as being
judged for a single decision you make pertaining
to the stupid project, if you take your sincere
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and desperate friend's advice, you'll be judged
for the rest of your life as a man who stood up
for what was right for White Mountain National
Forest and for the majority of New Hampshire's
citizens who also know what that right decision
is. Not just for the rest of your life, but
forever. Tom, my personal advice, this is my
personal advice, tell Northern Pass to kiss your
ass.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Mark. Again, I ask the audience, back to the
ground rules. I am not going to repeat them,
you guys know them. Let's try to respect the
speaker, let's try to respect the opinions and
thoughts and feelings of people in the room.
Chelsea.
CHELSEA PETEREIT: Hi, hard to follow the
husband. My name is Chelsea Petereit. I'm a
resident of North Stratford and a science
teacher in Lancaster and life is a balancing act
full of tough decisions and when students come
to me with their most pressing problem, should I
go to the dance on Friday night with so-and-so,
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I tell them make a list of the positives and
negatives, and I did that for the Northern Pass.
And I'm not going to rehash all of that because
other more eloquent people have spoken about all
of those already tonight and in the past and
you'll hear more tomorrow night. Suffice to say
that my list of definite negatives vastly
outweighed the meager possible positives. But
think about this. There's a place that we all
want to go, and in this place there is all the
clean, safe affordable energy and enough to do
all we want and need to do. And to get to this
place, Northern Pass is taking us down this
path, and we're going down this path and like
whoa, there is a cliff. And they're like, go
for it, it's all good. And we're no, I'm not
going there. We won't all make it. Some of us
might make it. Some of us might benefit but we
all won't. Some people are going to get hurt.
And you look around and there are these other
paths, there's one and there's one and there's
one and guess what, they all go to that place.
Might take a little longer, but they all get
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there. My personal favorite is that path where
you combine conservation with higher efficiency
and you add in a mix of some solar and some wind
and some small hydro that's produced where the
energy is needed and guess what? There's no
cliff, we can all get there. Northern Pass
doesn't listen. They won't listen. They keep
pushing us, edging us toward that precipice and
we keep fighting and struggling to keep from
going over the edge. Well, we've looked at
Northern Pass. We're not going to leap and
we're not going to stop fighting. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Chelsea. Next speaker is Ronnie Sandler. I'd
also like to call up Charlie Duursema. Douglas
Eason, Allen Bouthillier, David Atkinson. The
floor is yours.
RONNIE SANDLER: My name is Ronnie Sandler.
I am a resident of Easton. I've lived in the
North Country for the past 46 years and I live
here because of the beauty of the landscape, the
rural beauty and the recreational opportunities
that are bound up here. I want to start by
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saying I've gone to the open houses, I've asked
questions, and my questions are not answered.
Last week I was told we'll get back to you on
that. I haven't heard anything yet. I'm not
expecting to. Number one, it's my understanding
that this is an incomplete application and I
thought there had to be an alternate route for
the application to go forward but I guess I'm
wrong on that. Everything Northern Pass has
been telling us doesn't pass the straight face
test. A hundred plus foot towers twice the
height of the trees through some of the most
scenic landscape in New England won't affect
tourism. Really? I don't know. It won't
affect the salability of property and the values
of the property. It's hard to believe that
property assessments won't go down. I have a
couple of friends that live in Sugar Hill.
They're in their late 70s, they own 400 acres
and a beautiful large house. They wanted about
two and a half years ago to start downsizing as
they get older, they wanted to sell a couple of
hundred acres on one side of the land with their
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house and build a smaller house on that other
side. They went to three realtors. Every one
of them said don't even put your land on the
market until this Northern Pass thing is
finished because you will not sell it or if you
will, you will get 50 percent of the value.
The tax estimates given to towns and I want
to point out that Northern Pass is not willing
to guarantee those taxes. Now, this is from the
same companies that are suing the towns right
now to lower their tax assessments. It's no
wonder they don't want to guarantee them.
Employment estimates of 1200. I spoke to a
contractor at the open house who said to me I
don't know where they got that number. It would
be closer to 450 people. We'll bring half our
own employees, we'll hire loggers and earth
works locally and that's about it. And when I
walked in here today, I'm parked way down there,
there were three trucks from a Michigan firm
doing electrical work. I feel badly for the
brothers in the IBEW who probably won't be
getting the jobs they've been promised. Why not
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look at burying the lines. Let's get real
estimates of the cost and I encourage you to do
your own research and evaluations. We can't
believe everything or perhaps anything that
Northern Pass tells us. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Ronnie. John Jones.
JOHN JONES: Thank you for being so
patient. You've been waiting to hear what I
have to say for two nights now. I'm from
Plymouth and stayed there. My name is John W.
Jones and I'm originally from Connecticut. I'm
a refuge from progress if you will. I've been
up here since 1959. Raised my family up here.
We live in the shadow of Mt. Kearsarge down near
New London in a little town called North Sutton
and I'm a rocket scientist, but the good news is
that is a no-brainer. I was thinking coming up
through the notch and holding back the tears and
the emotions and the love I have. These are our
White Mountains of home, sir, and for you to
allow them to put a string of these towers, ten,
15-story towers down through the White Mountains
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here would be a desecration that would be
comparable to go to the Louvre in Paris and take
a Magic Marker and put warts all over the nose
of the Mona Lisa. It would be disgraceful, and
that's not an exaggeration. I'm a working man,
not a rocket scientist. And I am certainly
interested in employment for the North Country
and there's going to be an awful lot of digging
that's going to be have to be done if these
folks from across the border want to have their
way and send electricity to Connecticut through
our state. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments.
Charlie is pretty eager to get up here so --
CHARLIE DUURSEMA: Everything that's been
said is what I was going to say, but I'll just
read what I have. Charlie Duursema from
Lancaster. As an abutter to the existing
right-of-way crossing Route 2 in Lancaster I'm
very concerned about the Northern Pass
transmission line towers along with the
replacement towers for the existing lines.
These towers interfere with the beautiful scenic
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view of the White Mountains Presidential Range
from a scenic area opposite Rogers Campground on
Route 2 and we will be stuck with these towers
forever. Much of New Hampshire's North Country
economy is based on and generated by
out-of-state vacationers who come to admire the
picturesque scenery and colorful autumn leaves
and whose visits may be impacted by unsightly
transmission towers interrupting their views and
quite possibly causing them to reconsider future
visits. This project jeopardizes our economy.
Because of the proposed height of the
towers my own calculations and observations
indicate they will be visible from my house.
This is through the woods, too, and are sure to
detract from my own property's appeal as well as
decrease its value and others along the
right-of-way. Do you think for a moment that
our local government will reduce our property
taxes because of this diminished value?
Absolutely not. We the people will lose on both
counts. If allowed to build the line, I am not
the only one who feels these transmission lines
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should be buried along state-owned
rights-of-way, along highways or inactive
railroad beds. Northern Pass has spent too much
time trying to convince the public this is not
an option, but developers have been doing
exactly this for years. I say no to Northern
Pass.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Charles. Douglas Eason? Also like to call up
Chris Thayer, Robert Craven, Jan Edick.
DOUG EASON: Good evening. My name is Doug
Eason. I live down in Dover, New Hampshire.
That's where my primary residence is. My family
owns property in Stark and Groveton and I wish I
could wow you with some fancy charts or graphs.
I don't have a Ph.D. or psychiatry degree and I
certainly can't sing a lovely song like we heard
earlier, but I do have a passion for this topic,
and I can really think back to about 30 years
ago when I was just graduating from UNH and I
had a job and my parents were like whew, he's
out of the house, we finally got rid of him and
I just wasn't feeling it. I felt like I needed
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to go out and see the world. I thought about
going to Europe. I quickly surmised I just
didn't have the money to do that, but I thought,
you know, the United States would be a great
place to see first. So much to my parents'
chagrin I quit my job, liquidated my bank
account, sold all my possessions that wouldn't
fit in the car, packed my camping gear up and I
hit the road and I spent over 6 months traveling
through the country. I lived in a tent. I saw
some of most beautiful natural scenery that this
country has to offer including Yellowstone,
Yosemite, but I felt lonely. I felt like I was
missing something and eventually I found my way
back to New Hampshire, and it quickly dawned on
me that New Hampshire has this small beautiful
environment that you feel comfortable in.
People come here because they can take the
breath of fresh air and feel like themselves.
And if this proposal should go through, that's
all going to go away. I compare these towers to
building a skyscraper and you might as well put
one up every 800 feet from Franklin to the
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Canadian border and I wouldn't put it past
Hydro-Quebec to spray pain them green and spend
a few million dollars more to convince us it was
a new species of tree and all will be well.
Well, it isn't going to well because it's going
to impact our tourism, our recreation, obviously
our property values, and it will destroy the
future for my children and your children and our
grandchildren. I'm asking the Department of
Energy to deny the Presidential Permit. The
Forest Service should deny the special permit,
and the site evaluation committee for New
Hampshire should be looking at underground
alternatives. There's all kinds of energy
options out there. All you have to do is search
it on Google and if the reps of Northern Pass
don't know how to use it, I'd be happy to show
them. Thank you very much.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments
Douglas. Allen? Like to call up Judy
Weisenberger.
ALLEN BOUTHILLIER: My name is Allen
Bouthillier. I'm from Lancaster, New Hampshire.
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I was born and brought up in Coos County. Born
in West Stewartstown that's now a nursing home.
No longer a hospital. I'm in the logging
activation trucking business. I'm here to speak
on, I'm in favor of the Northern Pass idea. I
know I'm probably in the minority here, but I
want to say a few things. I've got two young
boys got out of college, they come to work for
me. I employ 25 people here. We need the work.
I've been in the logging business since 1983. I
logged on the White Mountain National Forest for
years. A few elitist groups that wanted to use
it for just their own use has basically shut
down the logging program on that so I've had to
diversify into other things which includes
excavation, site work and other things. I also
have a quarry. I've got 25 families that I
employ that rely on me keeping them employed.
The White Mountain National Forest was designed
and was developed and implemented to create jobs
and clean water and timber for the local
industries, the local people. And it's not,
it's a land the multiple use for many people. I
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met Tom when he first came here and we've had
multiple talks about this. White Mountain
National Forest has a multiple use for
everybody. It should be used for everybody.
There is power lines on it as it exists. I hunt
on that land, don't log on it anymore. If you
leave here, you drive down as I have many a
times to go visit my kinds at UNH, you drive
down 93, you take Route 4 over there. You see
all this beauty that everybody talks about. But
you know what? Take a closer look. You're
looking through power lines everywhere you look.
Route 4, 93, Route 3, every single highway you
drive on you're seeing power lines. So, I mean,
it's not the end of the world. One thing is for
certain there's going to be change. Work with
these people, there could be some compromises.
Maybe there is some critical areas here where it
could be buried. I think you've got to work
with them. To say no, to stick your head in the
sand isn't the right way to go about this.
We've got to work with them. Thank you.
MODERATOR: David Atkinson.
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DAVID ATKINSON: My name is David Atkinson
of Lancaster. I'm a former vice president of
operations of the Wausau paper mill that was
located in Groveton. I chose not to move out of
the area and stay in our beautiful North Country
and be around and hopefully to contribute to the
restoration of our fragile economy. I'm wearing
orange actually on purpose tonight. I have a
lot of respect for many of the folks that are
here in orange. So I think that we need to
compromise. Mark, Chelsea, Allen. I mean,
there's a lot of good friends I have here that
deserve to be heard. That being said, I want to
encourage the Department of Energy to support
the proposed route because I believe it is the
least environmentally impactful option
available. As a method of protecting the
environment, countless environmental laws,
regulations, require that new development take
place within the footprint of existing
development. This is an accepted approach to
minimizing environmental impacts that many
environmental groups have lobbied in favor of
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over the years. For a great majority of the
proposed route, the Northern Pass follows this
same approach. It proposes putting new power
lines where power lines already exist. As many
hikers, hunters, recreational vehicle owners can
attest the land is already clear and maintained
for the purpose of hosting power lines and the
environmental disruption will be minimal
compared to clearing a new route or digging a
180-mile trench underground. Can there be more
underground? Possibly. I think as Allen just
said, that's worth some more exploration. It's
my understanding that less than one percent of
the electric transmission lines in our nation
are buried. Yes, cost is probably a driver in
this statistic, but I suspect that the negative
environmental impact of trenching is also a
significant contributor. Should be studied and
looked at. As a businessman, a long-term
resident, and a concerned citizen it is very
troubling to hear environmental special
interests and some elected officials question
the Northern Pass's use of the forest. I find
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it very interesting that some of these special
interest groups actively opposing Northern Pass
were supportive of the wind towers that are
spread across our northern forest. These towers
are over four times the height of the proposed
towers in this project. The National Forest and
the Weeks Act were set up to allow for all uses.
These are not national parks. These are areas
that are meant not only to protect land and
provide recreational opportunity but also to
support the economic viability of the region.
In my experience a lot of the people
opposed to the Northern Pass are not directly
impacted by the project. Not everyone in this
room, but many simply want to stop any type of
economic activity in the region. I often refer
to these people as citizens against absolutely
everything. We need business investment in our
region. We need the jobs, even the short-term
ones. Our communities need the increased tax
base so that we can invest in our schools and in
our community infrastructure. I spent much of
last year as the building committee chairman for
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the White Mountain Regional High School Career
and Tech Education project. This good project
was not supported in large part due to the
residential taxpayers having to carry too much
of a burden. Business investment like the
Northern Pass is important in our region to help
replace the large tax revenue vacuum created
when the mill closed their doors nearly a decade
ago. I received an unsolicited direct mailing
yesterday in my mail box that provided a very
simple comparison of 1200 megawatts of clean
hydropower to the construction of two nuclear
plants the size of Vermont Yankee, three
coal-fire plants, 300 wind turbines or over
24,000 acres of solar panels. My mind was made
up already but this unsolicited direct mail
piece was quite a powerful affirmation and
reinforcement of my position. Finally, I would
encourage the DOE to approve this project route
because it represents a good compromise. I hope
there's more compromise and in my assessment
it's a good project. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
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David. Remind all speakers, again, it's
3-minute time. When Travis stands up, you're
encouraged to wrap up. Thank you. Chris
Thayer.
CHRIS THAYER: Good evening. Thank you for
this opportunity once again to provide public
comment on the Northern Pass transmission line
project. My name is Chris Thayer. My wife
Wendy and I along with our two young boys are
residents of Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. We
welcome tonight's hearing as a chance to take
part in the public process that ensures the
voices of New Hampshire citizens including those
in the North Country are directly heard and
considered in shaping the final Environmental
Impact Statement by federal agencies.
We stand in opposition to the Northern Pass
transmission line project as currently proposed
for the following reasons.
Despite efforts to suggest otherwise, the
expanse of metal towers and their addition to
existing transmission corridors will scar the
scenic landscape of our town and region
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affecting quality of life, diminishing property
values and town tax bases and our reputation as
a scenic rural destination. In fact, I can
personally attest that the mere proposal for
such a project has already adversely affected
the purchase price of local real estate. Visual
studies of the proposed routes suggest an impact
on 95,000 acres throughout the state as a whole.
Public support for this project has been lacking
from the start with 30 of 31 communities, New
Hampshire communities, along the proposed route
formally in opposition to the project. I
respectfully request the Department of Energy to
evaluate all project alternatives including that
of no action or full burial along the entire
route that allows our northern region to retain
the natural assets that have been the life blood
of local citizens and the source of inspiration
and spiritual renewal for all over countless
generations.
The taller towers proposed for carrying the
high voltage direct current aerial transmission
lines will necessitate widening existing rights
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of way and will allow for additional capacity in
the future. I respect actually request the
Department of Energy and related federal
agencies to perform due diligence in studying
the impacts to wildlife, wetland, forest
resources, communities and recreation areas
along the proposed routes including most
significantly the White Mountain National Forest
and the crossing of the Appalachian National
Scenic Trail. The recent celebration of the
centennial of the landmark conservation
legislation known as the Weeks Act created the
Eastern National Forest System and the White
Mountain National Forest. Any private
exemptions proposed or accepted for this project
are an insult to the legacy of the people's
forest and the generations who have entrusted it
to public protection and management. I have
other comments that I'll submit, but I notice
that Travis is holding up signs that everybody
knows well so I'm going to cut to the chase. On
behalf of my family along with others in our
community and surrounding North Country region,
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we stand firmly against this project as
presented and ask that this public process
produce a result that serves the best interests
of the State of New Hampshire and those of us
who are lucky enough to call it home. Thank
you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Chris. Robert Craven. I'm also like to call up
Andrew Smith, Carl Martland, Paul Haslanger,
Julie Seely.
ROBERT CRAVEN: My name is Robert Craven.
I'm a resident and former Selectman in the town
of Easton. In December of 2010 I and the Easton
Selectmen submitted a petition to intervene in
the NPT permitting process on behalf of the
people of Easton. The project if allowed to
proceed as proposed would have the devastating
impact on our town in terms of diminished
property values and quality of life as has been
amply discussed by past speakers. We should be
clear about the NPT project. This is simply a
private, for-profit merchant transaction.
Hydro-Quebec has excess power that it wants to
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sell. NPT and PSNH would both profit handsomely
if this power were transmitted over the PSNH
right-of-way and it is estimated that PSNH would
realize a revenue of approximately $50 million
annually for leasing this right-of-way.
Therefore, it is clear that NPT has no interest
in seriously pursuing any alternative to their
proposed overhead power line which would deprive
them of this lucrative revenue stream. New
England power grid operator, ISO-New England,
has not declared need for any new power to the
grid in order to ensure its reliability. New
Hampshire is, in fact, a net power exporter and
this project would have no benefit to us. New
Hampshire is to be simply a conduit for a power
line that not only would not benefit New
Hampshire but would have a permanent devastating
effect on our quality of life. Not a very good
deal for New Hampshire.
There have been persistent and repeated
requests to NPT to consider underground rather
than overhead power transmission in public road
and rights-of-way. NPT has consistently and
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repeatedly dismissed these alternatives as too
expensive, that would increase the project's,
considered as expensive and not practical. By
NPT's convoluted logic any alternative that
would increase the project's cost is considered
not practical and dismissed summarily. It's
true as NPT says that undergrounding power lines
is five to ten times as expensive as overheading
them. However, it's far less devastating to the
land, environment, property values and quality
of life. These issues must be factored into any
final project decisions as required by NEPA
regulations. If Hydro-Quebec wants to sell its
power in the US, they should bear the cost of
burying the transmission lines. By my rough
calculation the power transmitted over these
lines would generate gross revenue of around
$800 million annually. Surely this revenue
stream should be more than sufficient for
Hydro-Quebec to bear the cost of burying the
transmission lines.
In summary, we believe that NPT's current
permit applications fails to consider
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undergrounding its proposed power transmission
lines within existing public transmission
corridors in a meaningful way and for that
reason should be rejected.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Robert. Jan Edick.
JAN EDICK: My name is actually Jan Edick.
It's Dutch. What can I do. I live in
Littleton. My home is just down the road from
the original alternative route of Northern Pass.
I have no confidence that like the phoenix it
won't rise again so it's here. I'm retired.
I'm primarily concerned with the negative impact
Northern Pass would have or will have on
property values in the North Country. When my
wife and I came to northern New Hampshire 20
years ago we looked at a beautiful ten-year-old
log house on a bluff with a glorious view north
up the Connecticut River. It had a large living
room with a view, the library, a large country
kitchen, three bedrooms, three baths, modern
oil, water heat, wood stoves to take the chill
off, a finished two-bay garage and walk-in
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professional offices in the basement and sat on
three and a half choice acres. There was a
transmission line in the backyard. It was
nominally a 250 to $300,000 property at that
time. The house was then priced at 119,000
which is the only reason I was looking at it.
It sold a year or so later for 97,000. That's
substantial depreciation. It's a real house.
This is a real world experience. It isn't an
illusion. It's not a public relations
invention. It's fact, and it ain't deniable.
The true cost of Northern Pass cannot only
be measured in steel and wire and clearing and
paperwork. It is also to be found in the
catastrophically diminished value of all the
neighbors' properties along its route.
Anecdotally, Northern Pass has already caused a
profound slump in real estate north of Plymouth.
Unsalable is a word I have heard a number of
times. The environmental impact assessment of
Northern Pass has to include the comprehensive
study of the effect it has had and will have on
neighboring property values and the project must
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have some mechanism to compensate damaged
property owners. In the absence of said
mechanism, it should be an automatic no-go. Of
course, it's possible that if PSNH and
Hydro-Quebec are forced to contemplate the real
costs of their joint venture they might decide
to do something different. The real cost of
overhead transmission lines might even make
burying their lines some in some more suitable
corridor economically attractive. Really cheap,
clean and renewable power from the sub-arctic of
Quebec, magically transported to southern New
England to run their air conditions and hair
dryers is a fairy tale. If the real cost was
calculated it always was. Quebec has chosen to
bury and eat the real social and environmental
cost of their hydro development. In New
Hampshire, that cost for this project as
presented would be borne by real people who have
invested and labored for what they have. They
don't deserve to have it taken away. That just
won't do.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
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Jan. Judy Weisenberger.
JUDY WEISENBERGER: Hello. I had 8
questions. They've all been eloquently answered
so I'll skip to just the one that I hear about
the most. I'm yet another citizen of Sugar
Hill. One of the reasons I think there were so
many of us here from Sugar Hill is because we
represent many of the really tiny small towns in
New Hampshire that would be impacted by this
project. I ask you to please conduct an
independent study on the effects of this project
on the values and culture of the North Country,
not just the economics. Sugar Hill is a tiny
17-square-mile town. Retirees buy homes in our
town because of the landscape. Tourists come to
our towns because of the views. The landscape
is the tax basis of our town. Our citizens have
conserved a very large percentage of the town
for residents and visitors alike to use and
enjoy. We value the land and our scenic vistas
above all else. It is the reason we come and
the reason we stay on. I'm a flatlander from
Boston. It is the reason tourists have flocked
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to our town for centuries. If you love northern
New Hampshire, it is because you get it. It is
about the land. You will never accept that
anyone has a right to destroy our constitutional
right to the happiness these beautiful vistas
give us when there are alternatives. People
talked about compromise. There's been no
compromise. People talk about facts. We can't
get the facts. We know they're there, but we
can't get them so how could there be a
compromise. To echo one of the speakers that
was in favor of Northern Pass I feel Northern
Pass is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
destroy the essence of northern New Hampshire.
And in our town, right away we're just
dismissed. We have no rights at all. Well, a
right-of-way is not the same as a right to
destroy. Finally, I would just like to say when
I began this project I began because I saw what
those towers were and I saw where they were
going to go. I did not know about any of the
alternatives. Lot of the things that people
said, Northern Pass said, sounded reasonable at
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the time. I now know the difference. My main
concern for the epic time, money that I really
don't have that I put into this project is about
a concern I have with the kind of, after
watching this project what kind of democracy
we're passing onto our children is the reason
that motivates me now at this point. So,
please, do the right thing by you. At least
look at all the alternatives. There has to be a
better way. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Judy. Andrew Smith.
ANDREW SMITH: Thank you and appreciate the
opportunity. My name is Andrew Smith. I live
in Franconia, New Hampshire. I'm a real estate
broker and have been for the last 25 years. I
have a company that has offices up and down 93
and basically up and down the Northern Pass
corridor. I think it was Mr. Jones who said
something like this should be a no-brainer. Is
real estate going to be impacted, is the value
of real estate going to be impacted. It should
be a no-brainer, but just in case there's any
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question at all, let me unequivocally tell you
that it is not only having a very negative
impact, it's having it right now every day,
every day in all of my offices. My agents are
dealing with this every day with clients that
either need to or have to or want to sell their
property and they just can't. They can't
because of the fear of the unknown or the fear
of the known that this is a no-brainer, that a
nice little 3-bedroom, two-bath ranch over here
with a view of the mountains or 3-bedroom,
two-bath ranch over here with 140 foot steel
tower in its backyard, this house is going to
sell. This one probably won't. If this one
will, it will sell at a discount, a big
discount. So Mr. Edick said yeah, these are
real life problems, real life people and they're
happening right now.
The unfortunate part is this hearing
probably shouldn't be happening because the
application is not complete, and these people
are being put in horrible positions and they
will be for years and years if this drags on
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until we just put it to bed. The people in this
room are not going to go away. This problem is
not going to go away. This is going to win and
these people are going to have spent three or
four or five years of diminished value.
I just want to share with you two very real
life situations. One is right down the road.
Jefferson Road in Whitefield. This is a house
that's currently on the market. Some folks came
up, looked at it twice with a broker from the
southern part of the state. The third time they
came up they just wanted to figure out where
their furniture was going to go, come back to
the office and make an offer. Instead we got
this email. This was about two weeks ago.
Hello. They're going to pass on this property.
They like the home and the land but further
investigation they saw that Northern Pass is
designed to come down Route 16 throughout
Whitefield. They were perplexed that this was
not discussed within the property documents.
Now, this is a property that's down the
road off 116. You can't see the current line
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which you certainly, is right off Mountain View
Grand right now. You can't see anything. It's
not impacted by any power line now. But these
folks have just lost a very nice buyer for their
home because of just the concept that this power
line is going to come through Whitefield. I've
interviewed lots and lots of brokers. I talk to
them every day, and I think I can just summarize
it on what we're dealing with every day by a
quote by a broker it says, Andy, my own
experience has been the buyers would not even
look at the properties if they were near the
Northern Pass. I did have one sale fall through
on Tracker Road in Campton when it was
discovered that Northern Pass might impact the
property. Mostly buyers just stay away from any
properties that have any possibility of being
impacted. I respectfully ask that you do the
right thing and have Northern Pass stay away
also. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments.
Andrew. I was wondering if you wanted to leave
your papers.
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ANDREW SMITH: I've already submitted.
Carl Martland. Also like to invite up Robert
Kruszyna, Jim Ramsdell, David Hill, Linda
Brownson.
CARL MARTLAND: Thank you. My name is Carl
Martland. I recently retired after 35 years in
the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering at MIT. While there I developed and
taught a course on project evaluation. I wrote
a textbook. It's an expensive textbook, but you
can get it in Portuguese for half price. It
deals with the EPA process. We're all talking
about the scope of this statement. When the
statement is done, there's a draft and more
hearings and it will be reviewed by EPA. Yet
another organization, and I intend to save a lot
of my time and space for a long comment to have
100,000 words as I understand it at that time.
I would like to look at the options in the
impacts that must be included in this scoping of
this study in order to successfully go to EPA to
be accepted. First, does it include burial
along a route that is a reasonable efficient
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route which may be railroads, rights-of-way,
highways. It's not necessarily I-93. Second,
does the analysis consider options for
transmission and generation. We received in the
mail yesterday something from the IBEW that said
if you don't have Northern Pass you'll need all
those power plants and millions of acres of
whatever. Transmission is not generating the
power. Wherever the power is coming from is
going through the lines and you're going to need
people to dig those ditches and put it in place
and move the cable there whether it's on towers
or whether it's in the ground. So the analysis
must be very careful not to make the mistakes
that IBEW did. For us and for the US in
general, the negatives relate to the towers. So
if you bury the pass, bury the lines, most of it
goes away. Timing is an issue. When is this
needed and when might it be done? I don't think
anybody has suggested. Maybe this is a project
for 2040 or 2060, and by that time there will be
more technological development and all such
projects will likely be underground. The no
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option will be considered because it's a law.
Impacts, we've talked about property values, the
property values include the future development
for second homes and tourists. It's not just
what's there today or what might happen over 20
years. Third, environmental justice. This is a
clear case where the people of northern New
Hampshire, economically challenged regions, are
being told give up your views, give up your
homes so that people down south can plug in
their long extension cord and run their air
conditioners. And I conclude, I don't really
want to make all these comments because if the
Draft EIS is deficient in these matters, it will
be rejected and will have more delay and we'll
come back for more of this in the future. Thank
you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Carl. Paul Haslanger.
PAUL HASLANGER: I'm Paul Haslanger from
Lancaster. I'm going to start by telling
everybody in this room something that I don't
normally advertise, and that was that in my
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prior life I was an executive of a Fortune 500
company. So what I intend to do tonight is give
you the perspective of the people that you're
dealing with, what they're thinking and how they
work because I've been in the board room and
I've worked with people like that.
You've got to stop talking about PSNH.
PSNH is part of Northeast Utilities. It only
represents 25 percent of their business. They
have 2.1 million customers in their total
company. There are only 475,000 in New
Hampshire that belong to PSNH. The big dog is
in Hartford and it's Northeast Utilities. They
are making the decisions, they're right now
plotting the next 2 or 3 moves down the board.
They got the Wizard of Oz working there with
them, okay? Because they want this to go and
the reason is dollars and cents. This line will
produce ten billion kilowatt hours of
electricity down the pipeline. So let's say
they sell it for 20 cents, that's $2 billion
worth of cash. Northeast Utilities is an $8
billion company. They make $3 billion of gross
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profit and a billion dollars of final profit
after the taxes are taken out and et cetera.
They are playing for real. They want the money.
Companies do not do things that are good. They
put a monetary value. They give to the United
Way, they figure out how they're going to get
their money back. They don't just wake in the
morning and say these are nice people. Let's do
something nice for them. Everything has a cost.
Everything has a value. The guy who had it
right earlier this evening had a sign that he
held up over there. Greed. This is what it's
all about. If we didn't learn anything in 2008,
2009, when the market crashed, you should have
learned it. I'm just telling you, they're not
nice people. They want the money. Thank you
for your time.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Paul. Julie Seely?
JULIE SEELY: My name is Julie Seely. I
live in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, and I'm an
elected member of the Profile School Board, and
I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of the
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entire Profile School Board of which I've been a
member of for what it's worth for four and a
half years. Profile School is a public regional
junior senior high school located in Bethlehem.
It serves four communities. The proposed route
of Northern Pass cuts directly through Profile
School property, very, very close to the school,
and our building and athletic fields would
literally be in the shadows of the towers if the
power line is approved as proposed. We're
blessed with a vibrant school community and a
very involved staff and student body. Between
classes, sports and other extracurricular
activities, it's not unusual for students and
staff to spend ten to twelve hours or more per
day at school. We are very concerned that the
environment remain safe.
The Profile School Board wrote a letter to
Mr. Mills at the Department of Energy back in
May of 2011 with several questions about the
project in an effort to learn more about this
and similar projects elsewhere. That was over
two years ago. We never received a reply and
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our questions remain unanswered. The Profile
School Board has unanimously adopted the
following position regarding Northern Pass and
I'm quoting. Following the principle of prudent
avoidance with specific respect to the long-term
health effects of human proximity to high
voltage transmission lines, we, the Profile
School Board, take the position that if the
Northern Pass project is approved, the portion
of the transmission lines that is in close
proximity to the Profile School be buried to
eliminate the potential health risks to our
students and staff. Clearly, based on the route
that's being proposed in the far northern
reaches of the state, burial of the lines is
feasible and we thank you in advance for
requiring that the proposal if approved be
revised to include burial of the lines in the
vicinity of Profile School. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Julie. Robert Kruszyna. Jim Ramsdell.
JIM RAMSDELL: Jim Ramsdell. My wife Judy
is here. My daughter Holly, we live in
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Whitefield. It's actually Dalton with just
across the town line. One mile out of
Whitefield on 142 and we live right next to the
existing right-of-way. We have a nice little
barrier of trees which shields us from that now.
It's never been an issue. And that right-of-way
is the preferred route for the Northern Pass to
go through and my wife was going to speak later
and she has something written out. I'll just go
through that and keep it focused.
In '08 we moved to North Carolina because
of economic reasons and employment and after we
were there for a year or two we thought we
probably want to settle in here and buy a home
and sell the house in New Hampshire. So in 2010
we listed the house with real estate. They came
and did their appraisal on the house and they
said that we would need to put a Disclosure
Statement in the listing saying that the
preferred route for Northern Pass may go next to
our house so we had to disclose that up front,
but they come up with a price to list it at and
we thought in light of the Northern Pass project
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we will set the price 25,000 lower than what
they suggested to try to market it and get
attention. So we did that and the feedback that
we got from them was that we had done everything
to get the house ready. Everything looked nice.
We did carpets and wood floors and painted, made
everything look nice, new roof, and answered all
of the objections people might have. And they
said it was one of most turnkey-ready houses
that they had listed and they showed it they
said more than any others but every time there
was a potential buyer, anyone interested, the
Northern Pass always scared them off. We never
got an offer at all on the house.
In 2012 we decided we'd just need to come
back and live in the house because of the burden
of the expense that we had with it so ours is
not a hypothetical story. It's a real story,
we're a real family affected by the real estate
of this proposed project. And if Northern Pass
goes through, we'll be forced and you'll be
forced to contribute to a cause that devalues
our home and the beauty of the State of New
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Hampshire to a company which I don't support and
they will make a lot of money at my expense and
the expense of other property owners. I've
heard it said the costs are too high to bury the
lines. It would seem if the lines are buried
the Northern Pass development would bear the
cost and not the individual landowners who have
become investors in this project through no
choice of their own and great personal cost.
Northern Pass has a huge problem and they should
not be our problem. We ask you the DOE to
please deny Northern Pass to go through.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Jim. David Hill.
DAVID HILL: I'd like to thank you for your
endurance and for giving us all the opportunity
to speak and thanks to Mountain View for hosting
this meeting. My name is David Hill. I'm an
almost 30-year resident and businessman from
Lancaster. I'm also an instrument-rated private
pilot based at Mt. Washington Regional Airport
which is just down the hill here in Whitefield
although you can't tell that from the map in the
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back because it's been kind of conveniently
obliterated by a label that says Whitefield
substation. That should give you all some idea
of how close the airport is to the existing
right-of-way and to the proposed higher towers.
I would like to formally request that part
of the EIS be a thorough and rigorous aviation
safety assessment along the entire route, and
more specifically, I would like part of the
assessment to study how the instrument
approaches into Whitefield and missed approach
procedures may be affected by the higher towers.
I know from personal experience that if you have
to fly the missed approach you're going to go
over those lines. And I know from being a past
chairman of the Mt. Washington Regional Airport
Commission that the FAA and the New Hampshire
Department of Transportation are very interested
in extending the runway. Ed Betz mentioned
this. He was like the second speaker. They're
very interested in extending the runway an
additional thousand feet to the east so I think
that those approach procedures also need to be
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examined in the light of that possible runway
extension. And if anybody doesn't think that
that's a concern, we should go flying some time
in the clouds at night.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much for your
comments, David. Linda Brownson. Before Linda
starts, I'll give you some statistics. We had
11 elected officials speak. Linda is now our
42nd speaker, and I have a pile with 17
additional names.
So Linda, before you start, Sharon Currier,
Sherry Knierim, Barbara Enderson, Art Hammon,
Terry from 29 Colby Road.
LINDA BROWNSON: Good evening, gentlemen,
and greetings, everyone. I'm Linda Brownson,
Vice President of the New Hampshire Association
of Conservation Districts which is comprised of
our ten conservation Districts in the state, one
in each county, and since 1946 we have been
providing coordination, representation and
leadership for our individual Conservation
Districts to conserve, protect and promote the
responsible use of our natural resources. So
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when this Northern Pass came up we definitely
studied it and after long deliberations we stand
united and opposed to the Northern Pass project
for several reasons. We have nine bullet points
that we're updating the new Governor on, but I
can only go through a few. Hundreds of farms in
our Conservation Districts across the state will
be adversely impacted, degraded and devalued. A
great number of these have been family farms for
generations and form part of the cultural
history of the state and the identity of its
people. The hydropower coming from Quebec
cannot be considered green by any interpretation
that we've ever used. As defined by our
Environmental Protection Agency, green power
represents, quoting them, those renewable
resources, solar wind, biogas, biomass, low
impact hydro that provides the highest
environmental benefit. We cannot ignore what
goes on at the source of this power even though
it's an international border because we are all
part of the northern forest region, and
ecological systems do not recognize political
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boundaries. By signing on to this source of
power, we continue the deforestation of millions
of Canadian acres, the draining of rivers and
inundating thousands of miles of biologically
productive and diverse shoreline habitat
supporting a number of species such as the
woodland caribou, black bear, beaver, birds,
muskrat and moose. The impact of creating such
large areas of reservoirs on the water regime
and the land is tremendous as is the profound
impact on the nature communities. The
deforested areas will never again absorb carbon,
and decaying wood and debris will emit carbon
resulting in a net emission of global greenhouse
gases. Also, the Northern Pass project will
pass through thousands of acres of the highest
ranked wildlife habitat in New Hampshire as
identified by our New Hampshire Wildlife Action
Plan. These designated areas are critical
habitats for numerous threatened species of
wildlife as well as breeding grounds for the
highest concentration of neotropical birds in
the country and cannot sustain favorably such an
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impact.
Any of these issues, I'm closing, any of
these issues alone should stand up to close
scrutiny by the Department of Energy but taken
all together as a group, and I only went through
a few, the conclusion we reach is that the
greater public benefit, health and welfare,
economy and environment for New Hampshire and
New England can be realized by not building the
Northern Pass.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Linda. Sharon Currier. Sherry Knierim.
SHERRY KNIERIM: Good evening. I'm an
award-winning watercolor artist and
photographer. I own ten plus acres which
includes wetland, vernal pools, two streams,
forest and glacial outcroppings. It borders
conservation land and abuts Route 93. I have
kept a wildlife diary for over a decade of all
the wildlife and vegetation I have seen. In
2010 the New Hampshire Department of
Transportation spent months cutting back trees
along Route 93 and repaving the highway. Before
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this disruption, I had otters, moose, bear,
dear, snowshoe hare, hooded mergansers, wood
ducks, boreal chickadees, indigo buntings,
scarlet tanagers, owls and even timber
rattlesnakes. Since then, nothing. It has not
recovered. I do not even see common birds. I
have not even seen the New Hampshire state bird,
the purple finch. This is representative of
damage on a small scale. We cannot afford the
rape and devastation the Northern Pass will
cause to wildlife, vegetation, farms, tourism,
and the people of New Hampshire. This is my
impact study.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Sherry.
BARBARA ENDERSON: Hi. I want to thank
everybody that's spoken here and it seems like
the people who are in favor of Northern Pass,
their main reason is economically for the North
Country for the jobs. Won't they still have the
jobs if they find an alternative route or bury
it? And duh, listen to these people.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Barbara. Art
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Hammon.
ART HAMMON: Thank you. Art Hammon from
Whitefield. I'm a retired physics and chemistry
teacher. I taught at White Mountain Regional
High School. Whitefield Elementary School.
I've been an educator for NASA. I have a
doctorate in management, and so in that context
I want to look at the feasibility and the
physics of moving electrons through buried
lines. We're told that this is very expensive
and difficult and that it's not feasible, but
there's a proof of concept in our area. There
are three buried oil pipelines that pass through
northern New Hampshire. One of those was built
in the 1940s with a very different technology,
they didn't have as much earthmoving equipment
as we do today and so those pipelines were
buried and put in. Is there any reason why a
cable cannot be buried and put in? The
technology exists to bury the cable. It's
neither new nor impossible technology. In
addition, I spoke with one of the developer
representatives because I was concerned, can a
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buried cable carry as much electricity as an
overhead line. I thought they might use that as
an argument, but the developer representatives
assured me that yes, the same quantity of
electricity can pass through a buried cable as
can pass across the tall towers. So if we can
bury oil lines, we can bury power lines. And I
think my recommendation would be to simply bury
along the entire route of this Northern Pass.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments.
Art. Do we have Terry from 29 Colby Road?
TERRY LUFKIN: Terry Lufkin. I'm from
Whitefield. Local lands. Local does not always
pray. We tend to think the places that are
important, places to be protected, are the
places somewhere else. Places we have to go to.
Places out of town. Local suggests what is
ordinary and familiar. But what makes local
familiar may be what makes it matter. In each
of our communities there are places that have
special meaning for us. We are oddly agreed on
what they are. And in ways we may not speak of
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we depend on them to tell us where we are and
who we are. We need places to breathe in,
places to pause for, to look at, to walk in,
places near where we live. Not places we have
to wait to go to or to vacation in. Places that
prompt us to say that's why I live here. These
are real places, places we feel part of, that
feel part of us. They may show the rubs and
marks that come from being lived in. They don't
have to be apart. They are places of essential
scenery that gives setting to our lives. There
is something in them we are aware of. Maybe we
can't name it or choose not to, but it would
feel its loss if it were not there. Mary Lyn
Ray, South Danbury.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Terry. I'd like to call Judy Ramsdell.
JIM RAMSDELL: She's not going to go. I
covered hers when I spoke.
MODERATOR: Thank you. Sean Sweeney. Doug
Evelyn. David Thurston.
DOUGLAS EVELYN: Douglas Evelyn. Sugar
Hill. And thank you for this opportunity and
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thank you all for your patience. My wife and I,
my wife's roots go back to Bath Upper Village in
the 18th century. We're the third generation of
the family that has owned property in Sugar
Hill. We moved up here after retirement in the
mid-Atlantic 7 years ago. People asked why New
Hampshire. I said we love its beauty and its
elemental quality.
I didn't think that one of the elements we
would be dealing with would be Hydro-Quebec and
Northeast Utilities, but here we are, and we are
passionately opposed to this project for a
variety of reasons. I want to say something
about the beauty of this landscape. I think it
comes from the grandeur of the mountains and the
valleys and the hills, but it also comes from
the scale and the intimate qualities of our
built landscape and that is what makes it
particular. And I think that there are few
structures in that built landscape that rival
these towers. These towers exceed or certainly
challenge our church steeples, our town halls
and that will change. It will affect this whole
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region. I find that we are the door mat to
Hydro-Quebec's markets to New England. The
Northern Pass pass-through will permanently
damage what I believe is an international
resource, these mountains. It's not just our
mountains. It's an international resource.
People come here from all over the world and two
weeks from now you're going to see the busloads
stopping with the photographers from Japan or
wherever photographing the trees.
This project will depress our tax base, our
tourist-based economy, incentives for regional
alternative investments. It will damage our
unique landscapes and our habitats. There's no
benefit to New Hampshire. We've talked about
the Weeks Act tonight, and what it did to
recover this landscape from the degradation of
corporate activity in the 19th century. We are
the stewards today for the next generation. I
ask that we get the national help that the Weeks
Act provided a century ago. We get it today to
stop this project at the border. It's a bad
project. Even if it's buried, it will come out
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of the ground again. Given the disingenuousness
of the corporate proponents of this, I have no
doubt that in the future there will be some way
to bring those lines up out of the ground.
Thank you for listening.
MODERATOR: David Thurston. Howard Mitz.
I'll keep going, too. Margaret Seymour. Sandy
Bergquist. Hawk Metheny.
HOWARD MITZ: Howard Mitz. Sugar Hill, New
Hampshire. Gentlemen, thank you for your time.
You talk about human impact. Tonight there was
450 people, my count, that showed up. You guys
are used to thousands and thousands. This is a
low density population area. I've been here 17
years and I've not seen 450 people to anything.
Four-hundred-fifty people came here, and if you
look mostly everybody was in orange. That has
to tell you something. That the northern people
do not want this. You talk about impacts. This
will impact people, real people. We're people,
not props, so these people came here, spent
time, it's got to tell you something. There
will be an impact seen in property values, down.
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Quality of life, down. There will be
degradation of the pristine ecology of the
Franconia Notch and points northward. This is
going to be, it's an obscenity, an obscenity to
the land to allow, even to think to allow this
to happen to our property. I don't know if
you've seen the area, but to put these towers
along this pristine property is just an
incredible insult to our land.
The energy doesn't appear to be green.
We've heard multiple people talk about that.
The energy is not green. People talk about all
uses, but it's not the expensive every other
use. Lastly, Northern Pass talks about jobs.
Really? If they really wanted to give maximum
jobs they would bury the whole line and that
would give maximum jobs because it would take
the maximum work but at the minimum impact
long-term and lastly, we are people, not props,
and I with the other 450 people or actually
three people out of the 74 that you talked about
have talked in favor. Everyone else here is
really against this. Most people have not
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talked. And I thank you for your time and I
hope that you'll listen to the 447 people that
really do not want this. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Howard. Margaret Seymour.
MARGARET SEYMOUR: It's a tough job
listening to all these comments and the
Moderator, I think, has done a great job. I'm
Margaret Seymour. Like a lot of people in the
North Country I wear a lot of hats and I look at
things from a lot of different perspectives. I
have a very sort of small and particular item
that I want to talk to Mr. Mills about, but
before I get there I just want to say that I'm a
Selectman in the town of Littleton. Littleton
has voted against the Northern Pass two
different years. The Board of Selectmen in
Littleton has voted to intervene when the time
comes to do so when if we haven't yet we will.
I also am a board member of the Ammonoosuc
Conservation Trust, and it's partly because of
that relationship, but also because I'm an
attorney, and I studied environmental law when I
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was in law school and that brings me to my
particular concern.
The project as it has been presented to you
and apparently accepted by the DOE has sort of a
squishy area in the far north about exactly
where it's going to go, exactly how it's going
to get to its right-of-ways, and they're either
absurd or illegal. The notion that a
corporation can just decide any time it wants
anywhere it wants to just pass over a public
road is absurd. And the alternative which is to
breach the headwaters of the Connecticut River
by just disregarding a conservation easement is
particularly dangerous, and it's that that I
want you to think of in the environmental
assessment of this because it would not, if that
were ever to happen, it would not be just a
breach of that particular conservation easement,
it would be catastrophic for conservation
easements throughout the state and really
throughout the region and the country and that's
something that really has to be calculated when
looking at any sort of environmental impact from
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some little move like that in the North Country.
So that's what I wanted to talk about. I agree
with a lot of other people who have orange on in
this room, and thank you all for coming out and
all of the time that you've put in fighting this
project.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Margaret. Sandy Bergquist. Is Hawk Metheny
still here? Excellent. Margaret Egan. Carol
and/or Joseph Coulombe. Paul Amey.
SANDY BERGQUIST: Good evening, and thank
you for listening. I know that what is
happening is protocol. I am not sure of how
effective we really are because the decisions
are ultimately made in boardrooms which we are
not invited to, but we all speak from the heart,
speak from our brain. A lot of highly educated
people have chosen to live here and we're
fortunate enough to have had their point of view
expressed to you. People who have come to these
meetings come not only because of their feelings
but because of their rational thinking, and we
expect that you respect that in your listening
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now, but also when it comes time to make those
final decisions because there have been many
instances when requests are totally ignored and
then what recourse does the average citizen
have. We don't know where that request got
lost. So I ask that you please listen and that
you act on the request and that they not get
shuffled or set aside or ignored because that is
a disrespect, and that is a lack of formal
protocol. There have been a lot of issues that
border on illegality. We don't want to go down
that road, do we. There's a lot of orange out
in the audience, and I brought some myself. On
the way over here, I saw the beautiful leaves
that are just turning this particular shade. So
I think it's completely appropriate that we're
wearing orange. This signifies health, health
of our forest, health of our trees, health of
our people, health of our environment and a very
healthy economy because up here this is dollars.
We're also concerned not only about the health
but also the safety. As employees of our
government, ultimately of us, protecting the
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safety of your citizenry is a very important
part of your job, and there's lots of studies
that say that these lines produce, can produce
leukemia in children. We have someone speaking
to that about the school. That should be a red
flag. A stop light, if nothing else. Nothing
is so important that you have to plant a power
line that's going to, that has a risk of giving
children leukemia. Now, how important are
dollars. That's just, that's nothing short of
criminal in my view. So I would just say that
you've had a handful of people, I don't even
think a handful because I've been here all
night, of people who have spoken in favor of
this project. I dare to say that they have a
little personal gain in it, and I will say no
further. I respect them and their opinions, but
the rest of us are here speaking from the law,
speaking from environmental concerns and also
speaking from the sentimental value that we have
about living in a place like this, and I urge
you not to ignore requests for studies, not to
ignore anything that would open up more
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information because that is part of the
frustration with this. People are asking in a
very polite way and they're being ignored and
you'll see much more orange down the road
because this is not going away. People do not
want this and they do not trust what they're
being told. That's the truth.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments and
excellent use of props. Hawk Metheny.
HAWK METHENY: Good evening. My name is
Hawk Metheny, and I serve as the New England
Regional Director of the Appalachian Trial
Conservancy. We work in cooperation with
federal and state agencies and 31 trail clubs in
the maintenance, management and protection of
the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail,
also known the AT, runs 2189 miles from Georgia
to Maine and was designated a National Scenic
Trail by Congress in 1968 and is a unit of the
National park system.
ATC represents the interests of our 44,000
members, over 3000 here in New Hampshire, 6,000
trail maintaining volunteers and over two
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million visitors who recreate on the AT
annually. Our New England office is responsible
for the section of trail from Connecticut to
Maine and here in New Hampshire the AT has a
southwest to northeast alignment and runs for
approximately 160 miles from Hanover to
Shelburne. Since the proposed Northern Pass DC
transmission line would run virtually north to
south through the state if built it would have
to cross the Appalachian Trial. The applicant's
proposed crossing of the AT is in the Kinsman
Range at a remote location near the Easton and
Lincoln town lines on an existing PSNH easement
and right-of-way. The section of the AT is
locally known as the Kinsman Ridge Trail and
several thousand visitors hike this section
annually. That's the background.
I have a specific request for something to
be analyzed in the environmental impact study.
The 2005 White Mountain National Forest Land and
Resource Management Plan designated a specific
management area for Appalachian National Scenic
Trail, MA 8.3, which encompasses the lands half
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mile either side of the Trail for a total of one
mile in width which extends beyond the current
PSNH 1948 easement. With that designation comes
a set of standards and guidelines. On pages
3-48 of the Forest Plan the language under Lands
and Special Uses for MA 8.3 list Standard 3
which states, new utility lines or rights-of-way
are prohibited unless they represent the only
feasible and prudent alternative to meet an
overriding public need.
Since ATC last provided public comment on
this project in 2011, we have learned the
Department of Energy has categorized this
proposal as a for-profit merchant project and
the developer has stated the project is not
necessary to meet current market demand or
system reliability.
While we recognize there may be some
societal and environmental benefits to
hydropower versus more carbon intensive methods
for producing electricity, we believe that the
Department of Energy, White Mountain National
Forest, SE Group and all others involved with
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the EIS for this project, including ATC, should
very carefully analyze and interpret the
language of the Forest Plan, attempt to clarify
and if possible reconcile what appear to be
conflicting statements about what precisely is
an overriding public need.
The American people have investigated
through the authority of the National Park
Service and the U.S. Forest Service hundreds of
millions of dollars in securing a protected land
base for the 2100 mile Trail, and ATC is
concerned about the continued compromise of this
highly regarded public resource for what may not
necessarily be the only feasible and prudent
alternative to meet an overriding public need.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for your comments,
Hawk. Margaret Egan. Carol?
CAROL COULOMBE: Carol. Good evening. My
name is Carol Coulombe, and I live in
Clarksville, New Hampshire, and I'm here,
basically I am not much of a speaker so I'll
make this quick. I agree with everything that
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everybody said against Northern Pass. Probably
values have depreciated. I just had mine
reappraised and it's half price now, and I'm
probably one of the few people who's going to
have a great view. It's going to go in front of
my house and up on the side because I live up in
a little corner up there where they have that
L-shaped so I'm right there. And if you don't
believe about the devastation that this project
can cause, take a ride, I invite you up to
Colebrook tomorrow night, the other scoping
meeting, come and see the devastation. We now
have less nice pretty leaves to look at because
Northeast Utilities has hired crews to clear the
lines this year to make way for Northern Pass
along the proposed route. They have taken a
bunch of beautiful old growth trees off the
river. Completely cut them right down, and you
know, I mean, I couldn't believe it even up
where I live on Wiswell Road they've taken up
big slashes of the trees and left devastations
like you wouldn't believe. I've never seen such
horrible logging. Id like to find out who the
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operators are and put them out of business
because it's not even environmentally nice.
They left stumps that high all split and broken,
never, you know, they figure if the line's going
through so they'll just dig it all up anyway,
you know? It's the attitude of the Quebec
government towards the United States people, and
I say, I mean, there are some good Quebecois and
it's not all the French people that want this
because what they've done to the native people
in their own country is a filthy shame. When a
native from Canada cannot even go hunt without
getting permission to go through their
properties which have been gated by these dams,
it's incredible. I mean, I can't believe that
all these beautiful forests are under water so
that they can make more dams, and, of course,
the environmental devastation is unbelievable
because of the global warming, trees should
never be cut down. I mean, I'm against logging,
by the way, I'm not ashamed to say that. They
logged too many. Find another way to earn a
living. Become an environmentalist. Plant
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trees. Stop cutting them. I mean, there's
plenty of work out there. The government has
allocated funding that's never been touched for
this whole area for environmental jobs and other
types of work that Northern Pass can't even
touch those grants. I mean, if people were
smart they'd look into it and they could see
that there is another way, and I'm not just
speaking for myself, I'm speaking for what I see
is already happening. Northern Pass, the
Canadian government, are so presumptuous to
think that they can just come across the border
and just take over and cut all the trees down
and the hell with the people. The hell with the
way the people of New Hampshire feel, but yet,
they send plenty of tourists down our way, too.
Why? Because there's nothing left for anybody
to see in Canada. They have to come to the
United States to do their hiking and their
camping. We've got more tourists from Canada.
If you lived up my way in Colebrook that's all
you see is cars from Quebec coming here so I
mean, why do they want to cut us down. Why do
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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they want to devastate our beautiful New
Hampshire. I'm ashamed of what's going on. I
mean, there's so many good people in Canada.
Why don't they stand up and speak up against
their government. I mean, it's not like they're
going to get shot for it. You know? I mean,
come on, Magog. Wake up and die right. That's
what they call themselves by the way.
Canadians. And they are definitely stepping on
our toes so I think it's time to tell them you
know, come on. Be reasonable. There is a
border.
MODERATOR: Are you wrapping up?
CAROL COULOMBE: Yup. I am. So I mean,
I'm not trying to start a war or anything. It's
obvious that they want one, but we're trying to
hold back. You know.
SPEAKER: How about spelling your last name
for us?
CAROL COULOMBE: C O U L O M B E. There
was once a realtor that was in the business of
selling properties which have now depreciated.
And another thing, too. I wish they'd stop
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
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flying their helicopters over my property and
harassing me each day because it's a no-fly
zone. Okay. I have said my piece. Have a good
day.
MODERATOR: Do I have a Paul Amey? No.
Then it looks like Carol was our last speaker.
So consistent with what we've done every other
time, and noting that it is late, does anyone
want to give comments again? I'll take that as
a no. Does anybody want to sing again? No.
SPEAKER: I think we ought to thank our
stenographer.
COURT REPORTER: Well, thank you. That's
very nice.
MODERATOR: Is everybody in favor of
thanking the stenographer. (Applause)
Thank you all very much.
SPEAKER: What about questions?
MODERATOR: That request was for tomorrow.
SPEAKER: They're here now.
MODERATOR: I do believe they had to say,
Chris did say you could grab people afterwards
to talk.
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HEARING ENDED AT 9:36 P.M.
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C E R T I F I C A T E
I, Cynthia Foster, Registered Professional
Reporter and Licensed Court Reporter, duly authorized
to practice Shorthand Court Reporting in the State of
New Hampshire, hereby certify that I reported in
machine shorthand the above-entitled Public Scoping
Meeting held on September 25, 2013, for the Northern
Pass EIS and that the foregoing is a true, complete,
and accurate transcript of public comments as appears
from my stenographic notes so taken to the best of my
ability and transcribed by me.
I further certify that I am a disinterested
person in the event or outcome of this cause of
action.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I subscribe my hand and
affix my Certified Shorthand Reporter seal this 28th
day of September, 2013.
________________________________CYNTHIA FOSTER, LCR, RPR
NORTH COUNTRY COURT REPORTERS40 South Main Street
West Lebanon, New Hampshire 03784(603)298-2987 tel (603)218-6633 fax (603)443-1157 cell
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