Audubon's Ted Williams: Pulling the Plug on the Northern Pass Energy Project in New England (Posted In appreciation of heroes like Rod McAllaster, Lynne Placey and the Forest Society.)

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Pulling the Plug on an Energy Project in New England 

A habitat-destroying transmission line hits a wall in New Hampshire.

BY TED WILLIAMS

Published: May-June 2014

In the polar vortex of late January 2014, the thermometer on my truck dash reads minus 6. "No Pass," the signs keep shouting. Why, I wonder, are people so paranoid about drivers way up here in northern New Hampshire's Coos County? Even a Masshole from Taxachusetts wouldn't pass on these narrow roads, snow-clad despite the salt and unlit by man or, on this night, moon or stars. Finally a more explicit sign enlightens me: "Northern Pass Kiss My Ass."

Reviled throughout New Hampshire, the Northern Pass is the name of a corporate partnership consisting of Canada's Hydro-Quebec (the world's largest hydroelectric producer, owned by the provincial government) and Hartford, Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities, a private corporation that peddles electricity and natural gas. It is also the name of the high-voltage transmission line that partnership hopes to build, blowing a long, wide clearcut and a maze of access roads through New Hampshire's currently intact northern forest. . . .

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/climate/pulling-plug-energy-project-new-england?page=show