The following letter is in response to a previous letter, CMP Corridor: What it is and why it should be rejected, submitted by Karl Hokkanen and Griffin Spear.

Dear Karl and Griffin,

Thank you for dedicating your time to this important matter. We commend you on your efforts and your recent article. In the future, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We’re happy to answer your questions if it helps inform your work.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) has, strangely, sided with the oil and gas industry and has spread misinformation about the project throughout Maine. Unfortunately, some passages in your column are part of its misinformation campaign.

Oil and gas providers go from an American state to another trying to delay or kill projects that aim to provide clean, renewable energy. One Google search will uncover results from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Florida, California, and New York. Their playbook is consistent: Find local groups willing to play ball in exchange for monetary donations.

In Maine for example, three big oil and gas companies who have economic interests in the region started a front group called “Mainers for Local Power”, and this group is the main sponsor of the No CMP Corridor PAC, a purported grassroots group. Have a look at the Maine Ethics Commission website. That toxic recipe produces the misdirection campaign they are looking for.

Let’s review a few of your conclusions.

Your column makes the claim that Maine’s economy will not benefit. This is not accurate.

According to the Maine Center for Business and Economic Research, it will grow Maine's economy by over a half-billion dollars. And according to independent analysis commissioned by the Maine PUC, the project will provide Maine utility customers with $346 million lowered electricity costs over just the first 15 years of operation. The Clean Energy Connect will also contribute $18 million every year in new property taxes to towns along the corridor.

Hydro-Québec and the Clean Energy Corridor have committed to $258 million in additional investments supporting broadband expansion, low-income customers, rate relief, heat pumps, and electric vehicles. Payments towards that package have begun – ahead of schedule. Millions are already being invested in Maine’s economy, and it’s Maine agencies, such as ConnectME, Efficiency Maine Trust and the Office of the Public who are administering the funds.

The Maine AFL-CIO voted to endorse the project because it creates 1,600 construction jobs, employing Mainers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 104, Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 327, and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 4.

You concluded that Maine would receive no clean energy. Perhaps were you not aware that the Corridor will transmit hydropower into the New England grid in Lewiston, and Governor Mills made sure the state would be guaranteed enough hydropower to meet the needs of 70,000 Maine homes – at a discounted cost. Here’s a link to Governor Mills’ announcement detailing that power agreement between Maine and Hydro-Quebec.

With respect to the suggestion that HQ is involved in the practice of backfilling local and other demand with fossil fuel power sources, this is neither true nor possible since both Québec and HQ’s surrounding markets have strict requirements for the use of renewable power.  To the extent that electricity demand or supply changes in any of these markets, it will need to be met with renewable energy sources. NRCM and other opposition groups like to mislead Mainers by claiming otherwise, but again, this is not accurate. 

Regarding deforestation, we suggest you continue your research. The logging industry cuts more than 400,000 acres of Maine’s forest annually. The cleared acreage for the Clean Energy Corridor is approximately 1,000 acres, and in an area used by commercial loggers for generations. Comparatively, this is a small fraction of the clearing needed for an equivalent wind project or for a solar one.

Here are a few additional points project opponents consistently get wrong:

+About hydro, billions of gallons of water, stored in reservoirs, are what fuel the creation of hydroelectricity. Hydropower is at the ready when the sun is not shining, and the wind is not blowing – making it a natural complement to wind and solar. Together, these clean power sources can help New England take meaningful steps toward reducing its dependence on fossil fuel consumption and the damaging greenhouse gas emissions that come along with it.

+Greenhouse gas emissions do increase immediately after reservoir creation; they then decline to natural levels within four to eight years (a short period for infrastructure designed to last a century).

Moreover, opponents misleadingly compare HQ’s reservoirs to those in warmer climates, which are biologically more active and therefore produce a lot of methane: a potent greenhouse gas. By comparison, HQ’s reservoirs are in northern Québec, a boreal climate, with less decomposition, and with waters that are far more oxygenated. This leads to CO2 levels that are consistent with the region’s lakes.

Even within Québec, reservoir emissions differ from one installation to another. B. Hagger’s assumption that emissions of a reservoir with a higher-than-average carbon footprint can be extrapolated to the entire system — and thus asserting that hydropower reservoir emissions are comparable to fossil fuel — is just bad science. When real emissions data from the actual HQ reservoirs are used, based on more than 500,000 field measurements and assessed in more than 100 published scientific papers, the greenhouse gas emissions from the HQ reservoir system are shown to be very small when compared to fossil fuel generation and comparable to those of other renewables.

+This project will give Maine much-needed energy diversification. Maine has the sixth-highest energy costs in the United States, largely due to the state’s reliance on fossil-fuel powered electricity. When fossil fuel prices spike during high consumption periods (like winter), electricity prices go up as well. By introducing our hydro power into the Maine grid, we can temper those spikes. The power agreement between Hydro-Québec and the State of Maine will lower those costs even further.

+Maine DEP’s permit for the Clean Energy Connect placed stringent standards on the project. Read more at the DEP’s website.

Again, thanks for taking the time to research this matter. If you’d like to know more about the arguments made here, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Lynn St-Laurent is spokesperson for Hydro-Québec