By Michael Shepherd - July 12, 2023
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An energy project that won early support now faces criticism. Sound familiar? If you talk to people who know Maine's energy landscape well, you would hear that the proposed wind transmission line to connect Aroostook County to the regional grid has been a political marvel on a fraught topic.

Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, are political rivals, but they have joined with other local lawmakers to champion the project, which got early legislative approval last month.

It still must work through a time-consuming permitting process. With specificity comes the opportunity for a project to get off track, as Maine saw clearly during the protracted debate over the Central Maine Power Co. hydropower corridor through western Maine, which looks to be back on after courts effectively threw out a referendum aiming to stop the project.

Some of the first complaints about the project are now coming after LS Power, the New York company managing the corridor from Reed Plantation to a substation in Lincoln County released its first proposed route. It caught some officials by surprise when they found out the project could be going through their towns.

“We had a start and an end,” Rep. Steven Foster, R-Dexter, who voted against the legislative proposal, told the Houlton Pioneer Times. “We basically gave them a rubber stamp with no information.”

The Legislature acted without a route in hand, but nothing about this route is final. Local governments and regulators will get their chances to weigh in. LS Power is also holding meetings from Mattawamkeag to Windsor over the next eight days, and the company released a study on Tuesday saying the project will save Maine ratepayers $900 million over the 25-year contract.

All of this is starting to be reminiscent of the CMP corridor debate. After the harsh political fight that culminated in the 2021 referendum against the project, it is easy to forget that it locked down early support from former Gov. Paul LePage and collected support from cities and towns across the affected area early after it began to move forward in 2018.

Things began to unravel when grassroots opposition rose up into 2019. Local officials began to rescind their support, with Caratunk issuing a letter a year after formally backing the project to say more information had come to light. There were referendums as well, with Wilton residents issuing an astounding 162-1 vote at a town meeting to rescind support.

This may not happen to the Aroostook project. There are economic factors in play in uniting The County with the electric grid that serves Maine, and the project has played politics well so far. But crossing through a wide swath of the state is always a difficult proposition, and we know energy projects here are fraught.