Hydro does power line turnaround IP wants review to continue

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. says it wants to drop its plans to build a new power line through the woods in eastern Maine in favor of putting it along a major haul road as proposed by International Paper Co.

IP, the largest landowner in the region, long has pushed for the power line to be along its Stud Mill Road, but it is objecting to Bangor Hydro’s suggestion that the current review by the Board of Environmental Protection be stopped so the power company can amend its application.

A major reason for IP’s objection is that Bangor Hydro twice has sued the paper company over issues involving the proposed 84-mile-long power line, said a letter from IP to the BEP.

Bangor Hydro first proposed building a new power line from Orrington to Baileyville in 1990, largely through the woods then owned by Champion International Corp., to bring power from neighboring New Brunswick into New England.

The BEP approved the project in 1992 with the stipulation that construction begin within five years. When the company asked to renew its permit in 1999, the BEP decided to take a fresh look.

In 2000, Champion merged with IP, and the new company began urging that the power line be built along the Stud Mill Road, which is now bordered by a natural gas pipeline, because it would fragment its forestland less. In addition, personnel could better monitor the use of all-terrain vehicles along the 170-foot-wide power line corridor if it were more out in the open.

After five days of public hearings and a day of BEP deliberations last fall, staff at the Department of Environmental Protection wrote a draft order in December denying Bangor Hydro’s application. They said the route proposed by IP was practical and would be less harmful to the environment because it would consolidate utility development.

Bangor Hydro’s proposal to drop its original application and work on the IP route is in response to that order.

“Maybe we’re a bit stubborn, but we get it,” Alan Spear, the power company’s director of special projects, said Thursday. “The draft order says we’re wrong … and that the IP route does it for [the board].”

Rather than spending months and a lot of money on lawyers to complete the BEP process in light of the staff’s opposition, it makes more sense for the company to amend its proposal now to make the middle 40 miles of the route parallel the Stud Mill Road, Spear said.

“We want to get this darn thing sited and get on with life,” he said.

Attorneys for IP and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the third party in the legal wrangling over the line’s location, strenuously object to Bangor Hydro’s latest proposal because they believe the company is reading too much into the draft order.

“Rather than speculating that the [Stud Mill Road] route is consistent with the ‘apparent intention’ of the board, it makes more sense to allow the board to complete its deliberative process and issue its final decision in this proceeding,” IP attorney Andrew Hamilton wrote in a letter to the BEP earlier this week.

In an interview Thursday, Hamilton said IP was pleased that Bangor Hydro now recognizes the benefits of the route proposed by the paper company.

However, in his letter, he said the company was not eager to talk with Bangor Hydro about siting the line on its property because of the lawsuits.

“[Bangor Hydro’s] contradictory positions chill, if not preclude, the opportunity for IP and [Bangor Hydro] to engage in meaningful discussion and information sharing at this time,” he said.

Bangor Hydro sued IP in September contending that the company had breached a contract because it no longer supported the utility’s proposed power line route. It based this contention on a 1990 letter in which Champion International wrote it had “no objection to the overall project.”

IP officials have said that the letter was merely an “agreement to agree,” and that much has changed on its land since 1990. The changes include the listing of wild Atlantic salmon on two rivers on its property as an endangered species, the building of a gas pipeline along the Stud Mill Road and the increased use of ATVs.

Bangor Hydro again sued IP in October saying the paper company was trying to sell the same land twice because it had agreed to sell rights along the Machias River to the utility and then, last year, agreed to sell an easement along the same river to the state. The conservation easement along the Machias River aims to protect habitat for Atlantic salmon.

Spear said Thursday that the company would not drop the suits but would consider putting them on hold “pending negotiations, if they are fruitful.”

Hamilton said IP’s acceptance or rejection of such a stay of the legal action would depend on its conditions.

Dan Amory, an attorney for NRCM, said Thursday that the current proceedings, which have spanned 11 years, are very complicated and should be completed rather than further confusing matters by allowing Bangor Hydro to change its application now. Instead, the company should file a new application after the current process is finished, he said.