The Numbers Smell Like Dead Fish And They Don’t Lie!

In the last installment of Wake Up And Smell The Towers, we talked about the fact that in addition to Northern Pass, there are two other huge power transmission projects underway in New England that are going through the same process as Northern Pass-they’re both in the planning and pricing stages.  The big difference between Northeast Energy Link (NEL) in Maine and the southeast section of New Hampshire along with its cousin in Vermont and New York, the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) versus the New Hampshire project, Northern Pass, is the high level of respect that NEL and CHPE have for the citizens of the towns and cities these projects want to pass through.  Citing community opposition to overhead transmission lines, CHPE’s strategy is to develop the project in the most environmentally responsible manner while paying utmost respect to community values and concerns.  For CHPE, that means putting the project underground and underwater.

Both projects in these neighboring states will be going underground or underwater through government owned or controlled corridors, while Northern Pass insists on going overhead through rights of way (ROW’s) it owns, controls or is desperately trying to purchase.  Furthermore, Northern Pass has shown an abject level of disdain for everyone and everyplace that will be impacted by its giant steel towers and its hundreds of miles of thick, dangling cables that would drastically and permanently alter the character of over a hundred and twenty five thousand acres of New Hampshire’s most pristine and economically important countryside.  But aesthetics aside, the numbers don’t lie and the numbers blow holes as wide as a North Country mile through PSNH’s rhetoric and logic as to why they say they’re right, and come hell or high water, they’re sticking to they’re story.  What’s their story – PSNH is coming through overhead on its ROW whether New Hampshire likes it or not.  Here are the numbers –you judge for yourselves!

The estimated cost of the NEL to National Grid is $2 Billion. When the vital statistics of NEL are compared to Northern Pass on a line item cost basis, it becomes clear that like NEL, the Northern Pass could easily and cost effectively be put underground down through an already softened infrastructure corridor like Interstate 93 for roughly the same cost as going overhead down the existing PSNH Rights of Way. Go to www.northeastenergylink.com  for more specifics on this innovative new project.  For more specifics on the Champlain Hudson Power Express that will be carrying 1,000 megawatts of Hydro Quebec’s power, 333 miles from Canada down through Vermont and New York going underwater below Lake Champlain and the Hudson River and underground along highway and railroad ROW’s, go to, www.chpexpress.com/ for more details.

You might rightly ask then, why is PSNH so determined to construct the Pass as an overhead line on new,  gargantuan, steel, lattice work towers 140 miles down through its existing ROW, and why is PSNH spending tens of millions of dollars trying to buy land to extend its existing ROW another forty miles further north to the Canadian Border from its current terminus in Groveton, NH when a much simpler and no more expensive alternative is staring PSNH and Northern Pass right in the face.  The answer is really quite simple, BIG BUCKS AND GREED!   The developers and owners of Northern Pass are willing to pay tens of millions of dollars of rent to PSNH for use of its ROW’s.  Some estimates go as high as $65 Million to $100 Million Dollars of rent annually for the use of the ROW’s for at least forty years.

Then the next question might be, Why does PSNH keep saying it would cost ten times more to put the Northern Pass lines underground than overhead?  When PSNH makes this self-serving statement, it is being disingenuous at best!  If PSNH was being candid it would instead say to our state’s citizens, It would cost ten times more to put the Northern Pass lines underground down through our existing PSNH ROW and underground down through the White Mountain National Forest than it would cost us to go overhead in that same ROW.  Why is this the case?  Because the existing PSNH 140-mile-long ROW comes through probably the most rugged, rocky, mountainous, environmentally sensitive, pristine and economically valuable scenic region in our state as is the forty miles of new ROW it’s trying to purchase up in the North Country above the Notches.  It’s not hard to understand why PSNH keeps pushing its own ROW.  It wants to hang on to the $65 Million to $100 Million Dollars of annual ROW rental it would lose out on if the Northern Pass goes somewhere else such as underground in a State of New Hampshire owned transmission corridor.

Based on current estimates and after deducting the very expensive costs of converter stations that turn direct current power into alternating current power as will occur at the Northern Pass facility in Franklin, NH, it will cost the Northern Pass developers almost as much to install its $1.1Billion Dollar project 180 miles overhead at a cost of $4.7 Million Dollars per mile as it will cost the Champlain Hudson Power Express $2.2 Billion Dollar project to go 333 miles underwater and underground from Canada to New York City at $5.1 Million Dollars per mile.  The Northern Pass figures are based on the early 2010 estimates of $850 Million, the net cost of the entire project after deducting its $250 Million Dollar Franklin, NH converter station.  And, the Northern Pass costs per mile are sure to rise as the project keeps running into obstacles.  Sounds like something’s fishy in Denmark, or maybe that’s in Montreal and in Harford, Connecticut.

PSNH and its corporate parent, Northeast Utilities appear willing to sell out the people of New Hampshire so these two companies and Northern Pass can pocket the cash!  As was pointed out earlier in this release, Greed and Big Bucks are the driving force behind Northern Pass.  Doesn’t all this make you want to pinch your nose so the fishy smell goes away?   The next installment of Wake Up And Smell The Towers will detail the latest effort at subterfuge on the part of Northern Pass to mislead the public and the New Hampshire regulators.

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(Part III to follow)