During our time up in the north country, it was very evident that there was a dispute. To make a long story short, a Canadian hydro-electric company wants to run high voltage electric towers thru the north country and down to southern New England. None of the electricity would come to NH (we don't need it anyway), and they would put the towers thru some of the most scenic areas - of which the towns rely on tourism for most of their money. So, it was very evident, that the Northern Pass Project is not popular amongst many of the residents:
The only sign in the north country that I saw for the Northern Pass Project was put up by the company itself and was overgrown by weeds so I almost didnt' see it. I didn't take a picture of it as at that point I hadn't started thinking of a blog post. I didn't take pictures of most of the anti-signs either, because the blog post idea didn't arise until late.
Just a little about NH's idea of intrigue and suspense.
We've had a similar "debate" here in Kansas. A power company applied to install two huge coal-burning power plants in far western Kansas. The then-Party 1 governor and her administration did due diligence on the project and found that it would cause much pollution - and Kansas was not even going to benefit from the power that would be sent to Colorado!
Unfortunately, the governor was appointed to a Federal post by Pres Obama. Her Lt Governor (who had switched from Party 2 to Party 1 to run with her, if I recall correctly) became governor. He/his administration issued a permit to the company - with the proviso that only one (larger) coal-fired power plant be built - just days before the more stringent Federal clean-air statutes took effect.
Now that a new Party 2 governor has taken office, I see no chance that the law suit meant to stop this travesty will succeed. It isn't as if we didn't have enough air pollution in this state - what with all of the feedlot operations and range burning and fireworks shooting (the range burning and fireworks in our area actually caused Wichita to exceed permissible levels of pollution for a couple of days, each!) One can expect that power plant to be pumping out the pollution for at least 30-40 years!
Good luck to the NH folks who are fighting for their scenic views. Hopefully, the powers-that-be pay attention to them.
Posted by: Cop Car | July 17, 2011 at 10:42 AM