On the CMP Corridor

This post might be a fair bit shorter than many of you might expect. I haven’t said anything about the CMP corridor, despite it being pretty big news here in my home in western Maine. For those of you outside the state, it boils down to this: there’s an effort to bring Canadian power down to New England, and to make it happen, it has to go through Maine. That much is established fact. What’s far from established is what all of that means. To illustrate, allow me to quote the summaries that supporters and objectors are using for the project. Guess who says what.

First:

The New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) is Central Maine Power’s proposed 145-mile long corridor of thousands of high-voltage megatowers cut through the Maine woods. CMP’s corridor would be as wide as the New Jersey Turnpike, and the towers each as large as the Eastland Hotel in Portland. This corridor would be cut through pristine Maine wilderness in order to bring electricity from Canada to Massachusetts, with no stops in between.

Second:

Why do so many people support New England Clean Energy Connect? Because it will create jobs, revenue and economic opportunity for Maine residents and cleaner air throughout New England at no cost to Maine residents.

To say there are strong feelings around this project would be a severe understatement. But it’s also far from as straightforward as either side would have you believe. How can you know that? Well, it’s a project that received support from both our Trump-lite former governor Paul Le Page and our staunch Democrat new governor Janet Mills. (Though they supported it for different reasons.)

Of course, some would say that’s just a sign of our politicians selling out to big business, but I need a few more facts before I decide to whip out the old tinfoil hat, and I tend to think many “conspiracies” are nothing more than people choosing to read the facts in a certain light.

So where do I fall in all of this?

Nowhere. I have been unable to find reliable information sources that convince me one way or another. At this point, big money has entered the picture on both sides of the argument, and both sides are using the exact same arguments. If you love the environment, then you either hate this project for slicing up our pristine woodlands, or you love it for bringing clean energy and cleaner air to all. If you’re about economic development, you either want Canada to take its power and go home, or you want all these jobs that will come to Maine.

Frankly, the arguments all make good points. (At least as far as I’ve studied them, which is admittedly not extensively.) And I have heard no argument strong enough to persuade me to get off the fence where it’s nice and comfy. At this point, it feels like they’re all talking around in circles, and so I stop really caring what decision they come up with and just wish they’d come up with a decision. Either way, we’re still going to have both the end of the world and a bright new ecological utopia, so just pick one.

If I had to vote one way or another, then I would vote in favor of the corridor. Why? Because people I know and respect have heard the arguments far better than I could, and they’ve come to decide that’s the best choice. I don’t personally know Governor Mills, but I have friends who do. I don’t believe she’d fold to corruption in the few months she’s been in office. I think she heard the arguments, for and against, given by experts, and she reached a conclusion.

Fair enough.

But that’s only if I were forced to vote. In reality, I’m not, and so I won’t. Not even to advocate that you support or reject the corridor. (Though I’ll likely get friends telling me I’m wrong no matter what.) In an ideal world, we’d have more time, hire some independent analysts, and really get a handle on what the impact of all of this will be. But it appears we don’t have time, so . . .

Whatever?

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1 thought on “On the CMP Corridor”

  1. I talked to a friend who is very active with the Appalachian Trail in Maine. He said it will not have an adverse impact on the Trail and in fact might reduce some of the current towers at one of their sites.

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