CMP corridor opponents ask DEP to hold off on land use approval

The ongoing battle to determine whether Central Maine Power Co. will be able to build a planned $1 billion, 145-mile electricity transmission line through western Maine has entered another skirmish.

A group of opponents on Friday requested that the state Department of Environmental Protection stay its May 11 approval of land use permits for the New England Clean Energy Connect project.

The DEP accepted applications for the project in October 2017, and gave conditional approval in March pending public comment. The department’s OK is necessary before construction can begin on the corridor, which would enter the state in Beattie Township, in Franklin County on the Quebec border, and run to a new converter station in Lewiston.

The opposition group, Say No to NECEC, has also successfully petitioned the state to create a November referendum that would rescind approval of the project by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which is also necessary.

The stay request asks the DEP to delay when its approval goes into effect until the referendum takes place and other appeals on approval order are resolved. Over a dozen Maine communities, businesses and residents signed the request.

"We're extremely concerned about the environmental devastation CMP's corridor would cause, and so we're asking that CMP not be allowed to start that devastation before the people of Maine and other state and federal regulators can weigh in,” NECEC Director Sandi Howard said in a news release Monday.