Many locals wary as CMP corridor breaks ground near The Forks
Poles went up at an existing corridor near The Forks this week, but that doesn t mean everyone s happy.
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The first pole of Central Maine Power s controversial hydropower transmission corridor is prepared for installation Tuesday near The Forks. The pole was erected on an existing corridor that had been widened near Moxie Pond. Associated Press/Robert F. Bukaty
Peter Dostie stood atop Johnson Mountain on Wednesday morning envisioning where the $1 billion New England Clean Energy Connect will run.
The owner of the Hawk’s Nest Lodge in West Forks Plantation, Dostie and six other locals were out on a back country snowmobile ride. During a break on a chilly morning, he reflected on the first poles go up on the controversial New England Clean Energy Connect.
SUSAN JOHNS
The completed project. File photo
One board’s decision linked to another’s is figuring into a third board’s work. That issue and several others came up on Zoom Feb. 11 when Alna’s appeals board started hearing three appeals relating to Jeff Spinney’s recent shoreland project. Then Spinney’s lawyer Kristin Collins had to go into a meeting at Old Orchard Beach town hall. The board set a second session for 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16.
Night one included participants speaking to the point of appealing the planning board’s decision in favor of the earthwork project at Spinney’s boat launch off Golden Ridge Road. Given that Spinney and selectmen reached a deal after mediation, the planning board’s decision incorporated part of that deal, and the appeals board lacks jurisdiction on the deal, appeals board member David Buczkowski said: “I’m not so sure that we have a path forward here.”
Paul Cain: Milfoil removal at Thompson Lake has been a great success
Milfoil is a densely growing plant that crowds out native plant species and adversely affects the aesthetic and recreational aspects of a lake. In Thompson Lake, most of the milfoil has been removed.
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The Thompson Lake Environmental Association acquired a secondhand pontoon boat coined the “Hippobottomus” as part of its plan to remove milfoil from the lake. Over a five-year period, Alex Bernardy of Otisfield led a three-man removal crew, spending much of their time between ice-out and Labor Day constructing benthic barriers, transporting them, and anchoring them to the lake bottom.
PORTLAND, Maine Construction on part of a $1 billion electricity transmission corridor through sparsely populated woods in western Maine is on hold because
Town rejects petition for causeway, culverts
MOUNT DESERT The Board of Selectmen has denied a request by three property owners on Northern Neck Road that the town replace two culverts under a causeway on the road and assume permanent maintenance of the causeway and culverts.
Northern Neck is made up of a peninsula and an island, connected by a short causeway, that bisect the northern end of Long Pond. The 60 lots on Northern Neck are privately owned.
A prominent sign at the beginning of the unpaved Northern Neck Road announces: “Private road…Owners & guests only…No public water access.”
Each of the galvanized steel culverts under the causeway is 40–feet long and allows water to circulate between the eastern and western sides of Long Pond. Installed in 1983, the culverts have become a safety hazard, according to the three property owners who petitioned the town to take responsibility for them: Robert Foster, Robert Shea and William Waters.