Permits expire for planned power line to Canada

Plans for a controversial power line to Canada through the wilds of Hancock and Washington counties look to have been abandoned, environmentalists said Friday.

A letter sent to Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection in late December said that Emera Energy Inc., Bangor Hydro’s parent company, is considering other options that will be pursued in a “more collaborative manner.”

The outcome will depend on environmental impact studies, Ian Thompson, a spokesman who is based at the company headquarters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said Friday.

Emera may propose an alternate route for the power line or may increase the use of an existing line in lieu of new construction. Study results should be available within a few months, he said.

“From our perspective, at the moment, the project is on the back burner,” Thompson said.

State and federal permits that had been granted to Emera expired with the new year. Thus, any future proposals for the power line will have to begin from square one, a BEP spokeswoman said Friday.

For 20 years, Bangor Hydro, and then Emera, have pursued a new link between power generation facilities in Canada and New England consumers. The most recent 84-mile proposed line would have carried electricity into New England from Point Lepreau, New Brunswick, through Baileyville and Orrington.

In 2001, Bangor Hydro promoted the project as a means of lowering electricity costs in a newly competitive marketplace.

However, environmentalists, led by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, fought against the proposed location because the high-power line would have crossed the St. Croix River, home to a federally protected population of wild Atlantic salmon. The construction also would have required leveling more than 1,600 acres of forest, they said.

The primary owner of the land, International Paper, also opposed the location, leading to contentious public hearings and several lawsuits, which eventually were withdrawn.

Emera also withdrew its application from BEP consideration last February. At the time, the company indicated that it planned to file a modified plan for BEP review by Dec. 31, 2002. Instead, the company allowed its permits to expire.

On Friday, NRCM sent out statements heralding a victory for the environment.

“It’s great news for Down East Maine,” said Cathy Johnson, North Woods Project director for the group.

“From the start, we believed that it makes no sense at all to cut a brand-new corridor through a beautiful undeveloped area … I sincerely hope that this is the final nail in the coffin for this ill-conceived idea,” she said.