An environmental permit granted last year for the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission line could be in jeopardy after a court ruling last week vacated a land lease for the project.
Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Melanie Loyzim told the project’s developers in a letter Friday that she is opening a proceeding to consider suspending the permit granted to the project.
The Maine Superior Court’s Aug. 10 decision to vacate a 1-mile public land lease to Central Maine Power (CMP) “represents a change in circumstance that may warrant a suspension” of the May 2020 order approving the project, Loyzim said. (See Maine Judge Vacates Public Land Lease for NECEC Tx Line.)
NECEC includes construction of 145 miles of transmission from the border with Québec to interconnect with an existing line in southern Maine for the delivery of Canadian hydropower to ISO-NE. The project received a presidential permit in January, completing the U.S. permitting process and signaling the start of construction.
But the court ruling, which said the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands (BPL) mishandled the land lease, signals a new round of challenges for the project.
The BPL, along with Avangrid (NYSE:AGR) subsidiaries NECEC Transmission and CMP, filed a notice on Friday to appeal the court’s decision, Thorn Dickinson, CEO of NECEC Transmission, said in a statement to RTO Insider.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, a defendant in the lease case, are appealing the decision too, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), which is a plaintiff in the lease case, filed a petition following the court ruling last week asking the DEP to “issue a stay halting all new clearing and construction” for the project. It claimed that the public would “suffer irreparable injury” if construction continues on a project the company “can’t complete.”
The environmental group included the Maine Board of Environmental Protection, which is part of the DEP but has independent decision-making authority, on its stay request. Board Chair Mark Draper immediately replied, saying it is “more appropriately addressed by and is referred to [Loyzim].”
Last June, NRCM filed a request to stay the DEP’s approval of the project. The department denied it, saying that it was not urgent because CMP did not have all the necessary permits at that time to begin construction.
NRCM asked DEP to act on its request to stay construction by Tuesday, but DEP had not responded as of press time.
Neither NECEC Transmission nor NRCM responded to RTO Insider’s request for comment on Loyzim’s decision to initiate suspension proceedings.
If a suspension is imposed, it will be in effect until the Superior Court’s decision is reversed, the developer obtains a new lease or the DEP approves a new route for the line, according to Loyzim’s letter.