NH power project: Should the lines be buried?

CONCORD, N.H. -- Kris Pastoriza doesn't want to see those power line towers. Like many other North Country residents, she has a long list of reasons.

The proposed towers would carry transmission lines starting from Canada along a 140-mile route from northern to central New Hampshire. They would be part of the Northern Pass Project, which would bring hydroelectric power to customers in New England. The companies working on the $1.1 billion project started seeking permits for it last year and hope to have it running in 2015.

When it was first announced in October, the 1,200-megawatt project _ enough to supply over a million homes _ was seen by many New Hampshire residents as good news. It was promoted as a project that would provide low-cost renewable energy, supply construction jobs for several years and bring in more tax revenue for the state and for the 30 communities where the lines and terminals would be built.

Much of the route would follow existing rights of way, but a 40-mile section that would come through the northernmost part of the state has many residents there worried about an eyesore that would cause falling property values, a drop in tourism. Some wonder if the project is really needed at all.

"I don't know what the good part is. What would be the good part?" said Pastoriza, a stay-at-home mother who's part of a group called Bury the Northern Pass, one of several formed in opposition. Their take: If the project can't be stopped, why not bury the lines underground?

"It eliminates the problem of the horrible ugliness of those massive towers," she said.

Smaller, underground power projects are more commonly seen in residential and commercial developments and in urban areas, which may not have enough room for transmission lines, according to a 2009 study done by the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington, D.C., trade group that represents utilities. Following major, devastating storms, some states and utilities have developed policies designed to encourage communities and power companies to work together to convert some above-ground projects to underground.

"It really does go back to cost versus benefit," said Ed Legge, an institute spokesman. "If there's not an operational reason for it, sometimes aesthetics win the day; sometimes it doesn't. It just really depends. But transmission lines are universally disliked and not wanted."

The companies working on the Northern Pass say burying the lines isn't feasible. They say it would be costly and possibly do more harm to the environment.

"It's simply more expensive to dig up the earth, to do the trenching, to create the many substations ... to create the access roads necessary to access that area, to blast the granite," said Martin Murray, spokesman for Public Service of New Hampshire, a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, one the project's collaborators. The others are NSTAR and HQ Hydro Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of Hydro-Quebec.

"You need alternatives to going through wetlands, so that really can mean a significant impact on the length of the line," Murray added.

Supporters of burying the lines wonder if the lines could be run under the Connecticut River. They point to a hydro and wind power project in New York state that would use underwater cable. The 420-mile route would run from Quebec to the New York metro area. The cable would be installed under Lake Champlain, the Hudson River and the Long Island Sound, or buried along railway routes.

The company proposing that project, Transmission Developers Inc., has applied for federal and state permits. It hopes to start installing the cable next year, company spokesman Andrew Rush said.

The proposal emerged in New York last year after an above-ground power project did not get a needed permit and was suspended. Opponents also objected to the transmission lines. But the underwater proposal also has its share of critics, such as the Atlantic chapter of the Sierra Club, which says it could affect the growth of flora and fauna dependent on the lake and river.

It wouldn't be the first project of its type in the region. A 65-mile power project extends under water and under ground from Sayreville, N.J., to Long Island provides power to consumers.

The Edison Electric Institute study concluded that underground power lines built by utilities have only a slightly better reliability performance than above-ground ones, and are prone to problems of their own, such as flooding.

In a report done for New Hampshire's Public Utilities Commission following the December 2008 ice storm, an independent consultant estimated that underground transmission lines could cost anywhere from four to 20 times more than above-ground lines.

"Underground is always something that we can consider and we may be asked by the Department of Energy as part of this process to examine it further," Murray said of the permit process, which requires the department's approval to move ahead. "It's out of sight to a large degree, but it comes with its own set of challenges."

The possibility of burying the lines should at least be examined, said Jack Savage of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. The society has objected to the Northern Pass plan, saying it would not be in the best interests of forests nor the tourism-based economy such landscapes support.

"No doubt that installing lines underground would have significant impact, but in the end it might be a reasonable option," he said. "This might be especially true if the route of the burial was along an existing highway, for example, where the landscape has already been fragmented and disrupted."