Utility defends plan for new power line Bangor Hydro says route most cost-effective

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BANGOR – The local electricity company, the state’s largest environmental group and the world’s largest paper company butted heads Monday over where a new power line should cross eastern Maine.

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. has proposed that the new line from Canada, which would run between Orrington and Baileyville, cross through remote woodlands in northern Hancock and central Washington counties. The route would roughly parallel the Stud Mill Road, a private logging road from Costigan to Grand Lake Stream, on a course anywhere from three miles to several hundred feet away from it.

The 84-mile line would be built in a 170-foot corridor to transmit power from a nuclear plant at Point Lepreau in southern New Brunswick to Maine and, eventually, the rest of New England.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine thinks the line should be built next to an existing power line that runs from Orrington to Lincoln and then northeast through the Haynesville Woods to Orient. That line is owned by the Maine Power Co., a cooperative that includes Bangor Hydro. NRCM backs that location because it would avoid altogether the Machias and Narraguagus rivers, where endangered Atlantic salmon are located, and would cause less environmental damage.

International Paper Co., which owns much of the land Bangor Hydro has proposed to cross, wants the line placed right next to the Stud Mill Road, which is already cleared of trees and bordered by a natural gas pipeline. IP is against Bangor Hydro’s proposal because the paper company doesn’t want another corridor crossing its land.

To sort out the matter, the state Board of Environmental Protection on Monday began three days of hearings.

At Monday’s hearing, each party made a brief opening statement and then Bangor Hydro laid out its case. NRCM will do so Tuesday, followed by IP on Wednesday.

“The [Bangor Hydro] route is environmentally superior to the other proposed routes,” said Ginger Davis, an attorney for the utility. “It is the only feasible and cost-effective route.”

Witnesses for the power company said the IP and NRCM alternatives would cost between $12 million and $28 million extra to build. Bangor Hydro estimates it will cost $54 million to build the line along the route it has chosen. Both NRCM and IP say these cost differences are overstated.

In addition, the more northerly route would go to the wrong place in New Brunswick, Davis said.

Brian Scott of New Brunswick Power said his company is seeking permits from the provincial government to build a line from Point Lepreau to Baileyville. If the line had to go to Keswick, New Brunswick, to connect with the Maine Power Co. line, it would be more difficult to locate and get environmental clearance to build.

“If the MEPCO route is chosen, I guess I would have to say that New Brunswick Power would not be there on the other side,” Scott said.

Bangor Hydro was admonished by the board for not sharing detailed information that supported this conclusion with it and interested parties before the hearing.

In addition to going to the wrong place, the Maine Power Co. route would not meet current environmental standards, Davis said.

It is “the poster child for poor electric line location, routing and maintenance,” she said. It is very wet, crosses a national wildlife refuge, and is near houses and roads. Adding a new power line to this corridor would only make a bad situation worse, she said.

The route proposed by IP would be highly visible and would be plagued by problems caused by dust and its proximity to a well-traveled logging road, said Bangor Hydro witnesses.

A power line engineer from Michigan hired by Bangor Hydro, Bob Broad, said he was concerned that a logging truck could crash into the line in the winter, causing extensive damage.

Joel Swanton, the forester who oversees IP’s northeastern lands, said in an interview that he could remember only a few trucks going off the road in his 26 years managing the land. Those trucks simply went down the bank and dumped their loads on the ground.

In addition to safety concerns, a wildlife biologist, Steve Pelletier of Woodlot Alternatives in Topsham, testified that adding the power line to the Stud Mill Road corridor would create an opening wider than the length of a football field that many species would no longer cross.

Dan Amory, an attorney for NRCM, said expanding the Maine Power corridor would cause less environmental damage because it goes through land that is not home to treasured streams and lakes.

“It makes no sense to pick a route that will have an adverse impact on salmon and salmon habitat,” he said. “The Maine Power Company route goes to the north of the salmon rivers.”

Both the Bangor Hydro and IP routes would cross two rivers that are home to populations of Atlantic salmon that were declared endangered by the federal government last year.

Steve Sloan, IP’s Northeast area manager, said that as the largest private landowner in the nation, his company is pushing for consolidation of utility corridors across the country. There is strong precedent for such consolidation in this case, he said, because a new natural gas pipeline was built two years ago next to IP’s major east-west haul road.

“Isn’t a transmission line more compatible with the Stud Mill Road and a pipeline than a wooded area?” asked IP’s attorney Andy Hamilton.

“It is better to have a wider corridor than multiple corridors,” he added.

During the evening public comment period, Jamie Kilbreth, an attorney for Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, said his client does not want a power line located close to the gas line for safety reasons. The power line should be at least 200 feet away from the gas line to ensure that current from the electric line does not interfere with corrosion protection equipment on the pipeline. Also, the company is concerned that equipment needed to repair the pipeline could be impeded by an overhead power line and that heavy equipment working on the power line could damage the underground gas line.

Kilbreth, however, stopped short of saying the power line should not go in the Stud Mill Road corridor. Earlier in the day, IP officials said they did not have a specific route picked out but that the power line should go on the opposite side of the road from the gas line.

Jane Washburn, a mapmaker from Penobscot, wondered who would benefit from this project. Bangor Hydro, she pointed out is merging with a Nova Scotia company and the new line is meant to move power from Canada to states to the west and south of Maine.

“The Down East lakes region is much too important to sacrifice to utilities,” she said.