The Northern Pass | 'My Roots Are Deeper than Your Pockets' (Yankee Magazine)
March/April 2013
The Northern Pass | 'My Roots Are Deeper than Your Pockets'
Love of place can run so deep that it's like faith. You can't explain it--it's just there.
by Howard Mansfield
EXCERPTS
The Northern Pass is a $1.1 billion joint venture of Hydro-Quebec and Northeast Utilities (parent company of Public Service of New Hampshire), aiming to build a 180-mile transmission line through the Granite State. To do that, they want to cut 40 new miles of right-of-way to accommodate towers as tall as 80 to 140 feet. Since it was announced in October 2010, the project has angered and divided residents of the North Country.
"On principle, the idea of a foreign corporation coming in to our pristine North Country to ruin it for their personal gain went against everything I believe in." She was not for sale. Against all that money, she put up "my conscience, my ethics, my devotion to New Hampshire's beauty, the memory of my husband, the love for my children and grandchildren, my concern for the health of those living near the towers, and more ..." She asked that everyone stand together:Don't believe them when they tell you Northern Pass is a done deal, that your land will be worthless if you don't sell. Don't let them isolate you; don't let them scare you. Don't sell out your neighbors. "I know in my heart," she concluded, "I am doing what is best for my beloved North Country." She signed it: "Yours truly, a devoted native."
A stranger has come to town. He has suitcases full of money. He wants your land. Will you sell? Does everyone have a price? Is everything for sale--every last piece of land, every rock, mineral, pond, and mountain? Around kitchen tables, families are divided: Sell or don't sell? And then your neighbor sells. He may be your nephew or the cousin you grew up with--and now he's estranged. There's a new stranger in town.
Read the entire article here:
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/2013-03/features/northern-pass...
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Comment by Penny Gray on April 7, 2013 at 10:56am
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Small thorium reactors will be the new green renewable energy in 20 years. No more environmental destruction. The dam being constructed on the lower Grand River (Churchill River) in Labrador is going to flood Muskrat Falls, an extraordinarily beautiful area of boreal wilderness. The dam at Churchill Falls flooded an area the size of Rhode Island. The hydropower produced by this and other rivers in Canada is enormous but the environmental cost was, too. Thorium deposits in the US are located in our deserts. Which means...mining operations there.
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I have been in favor of HQ power, but I will look up the Cree and Innu situation and probably change my mind. Let the big cities go nuke and leave the rest of us alone .
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An excellent article. Why can't these lines be buried the same way natural gas lines are buried? Why do they have to be strung on monstrous towers snaking all over the place? Drive to Labrador and see the most pristine wilderness left in the world blighted by these transmission lines and enormous towers. Line loss would be minimized if the cables were buried.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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