To the SEC about Northern Pass: Vote FOR Our Irreplaceable Assets
Breaking news on February 1, 2018: SEC denies permit!
January 30 piece: It’s decision-making time for the state’s Site Evaluation Committee (SEC) as they begin deliberations on January 30, 2018 to decide whether to approve or reject the Northern Pass project. The SEC is tasked with considering the proposed energy project’s impact on New Hampshire’s historic, aesthetic, economic and other resources.
Citizens from Pittsburg to Deerfield have expressed concerns to the SEC about the proposed project’s negative effects on historic and cultural landscapes of New Hampshire. They’ve provided powerful, in-depth evidence for places that make New Hampshire unique like our town centers, agricultural areas, and historic hiking trails. The Preservation Alliance, National Trust for Historic Preservation and other conservation, preservation and municipal groups have detailed impacts much greater than the applicant contends, impacts that meet the SEC’s threshold to say “no.”
The National Trust named New Hampshire’s cultural and scenic landscapes a “National Treasure” in the face of the threat of this nearly 200-mile project with approximately 1,500 transmission towers. The Treasures are a small portfolio of threatened properties and places that are essential to save or revive; the current group includes Music Row in Nashville, Theodore Roosevelt’s ranch in North Dakota and Virginia’s James River, the site America’s first permanent English colony.
Thank you to all who have spoken up on behalf of our special places. In this state, we benefit from a history and culture that embraces civic responsibility and environmental stewardship. We hope that the Site Evaluation Committee has heard these voices, absorbed this evidence, and votes FOR our irreplaceable assets.
Jennifer Goodman, executive director, N.H. Preservation Alliance
The historic and scenic view from the Weeks Estate, Lancaster will be impacted by the project.
Opinion piece by National Trust president Stephanie Meeks here.
