In rebuttal: John Nicholas: Ads correct about corridor's forest impact - Lewiston Sun Journal

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Ads about the clean energy corridor’s forest impact are correct.

Since there are minimal benefits for Maine from the New England Clean Energy Connect project, supporters have resorted to incorrect, disparaging descriptions of the forest around the proposed transmission line corridor in Segment 1 from the Canadian border to the Kennebec Gorge. A recent letter to the editor (David Griswold, “Ads about corridor’s forest impact untrue,” April 10) claimed, incorrectly, that there are many woods roads that are “wider than the 50-foot right-of-way for the power line.”

The author neglected to mention that the transmission line corridor will contain more than 1,000, 100-foot-high and 130-foot-high steel towers.

I am familiar with Google Maps, and I spend each year traveling to remote ponds around Segment 1 west of Route 201. The Spencer Road is approximately 30 feet wide. The remaining woods roads are barely passable by two vehicles, and many are passable by only one vehicle.

The area is a beautiful undeveloped forest that is logged intermittently, like the rest of the unorganized territory. Approximately 37,000 acres are owned by the Nature Conservancy and private individuals and families. The area includes a rare Jack Pine Forest and rare and endangered birds, Bicknell’s Thrush and Rusty Blackbird. The area also includes the rare Roaring Brook May Fly, that was not known to exist outside Baxter State Park.

The Department of Environmental Protection recognized the damage to the forest by requiring CMP/Avangrid/Iberdrola to conserve 40,000 acres in order to offset the environmental damage from the 53.5-mile-long transmission line corridor through Segment 1.

John Nicholas, Winthrop

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