PORTLAND, Maine - Central Maine Power wants to re-route its proposed electric transmission line to avoid remote Beattie Pond at a cost of nearly $1 million. CMP on Wednesday asked to amend its application to remove a potential obstacle that caused the Land Use Planning Commission to deadlock a week ago. The company obtained a mile-long, 150-foot-wide easement to make the change possible.
CMP says in a regulatory filing that the change will increase the project's cost by $950,000.
CMP's New England Clean Energy Connect would allow 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to reach the power grid to meet Massachusetts' green energy goals.
Sandi Howard, director of the group Say NO to NECEC, which is opposed to the project, says in a statement released Wednesday that regulators should reconsider "the entire project" in light of CMP's request.
"All new information submitted for this alternative route warrants an independent peer review," Howard says. "If the DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] and LUPC [Land Use Planning Commission] grant CMP's petition to re-open the record, we expect that all intervening parties have an opportunity to file testimony and weigh in on this last minute application change."
The Maine Public Utilities Commission approved the project. But the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and Land Use Planning Commission have yet to vote.