Existing Corridors
How many corridors have been designed and by whom?
I FOAAed this question - and it’s covered by protective order. So, I’ll be working (slowly) on back-figuring.
From what I can tell, the three bidders were:
MEPCO (CMP)
Maine Power Link LLC (Con Edison)
LS Power Grid Maine LLC (LS Power Grid)
MEPCO, according to legend, had preexisting rights to most of an existing corridor. This makes sense, as MEPCO is CMP. After a quick review of the informational materials on the MEPCO semi-alive circa 2018 website, it appears:
MEPCO was concerned about Corinna residents opposing the remaining corridor portion that was not under easement.
And MEPCO was concerned that Corinna would vote for an ordinance that would “prevent a needed electric transmission line project from being built in the future. “
The letter ends with the line “Electricity is not an optional service.”
Priceless! 😂
I seem to remember from school days that humanity existed for some many millennia without the ability to thread electricity along wires and use it. Electricity is an optional service. Legally, culturally, environmentally, socially, etc: completely optional.
MEPCO had published a map on their website roughly delineating their preferred route.
There is a fascinating piece of public testimony from a Corinna resident supporting Pine Tree Power (LD 1708), and describing the MEPCO land acquisition attempts in Corinna.
Yesterday, I called up the Corinna town office and spoke to someone who told me, approximately, that the town never passed an ordinance and the issue just sort of “went away” (probably because LS Power won the bid). She had experienced some interesting marketing tactics from MEPCO/CMP, one of which was telling the townspeople the electricity would be better quality because there would be more fingers of it in the ground. (???) Or, with the blur of a couple of years, that was how at least one resident remembered the pitch.
She confirmed, however, that many residents had sold easements to MEPCO willingly.
I have added a couple of things to my mapping efforts:
Pink lines are pre-existing large corridors.
Red and blue are the current LS Power proposed corridor
Green line is the MEPCO proposed corridor, which is very rough in digitization because the source is at a very low level of detail
From the map above, I see the real source of the challenge. There is no nice pink existing big corridor in between letter B (call it Chester station") and letter D (Pittsfield station).
Because electricity is “not optional”! 😂
The real point of this post is not only to poke fun at our diverse religions of electricity or non-electricity, but to emphasize: this issue is not going away. We need a comprehensive plan. It needs to be buried in existing corridors.