The Conservation Law Foundation has filed a lawsuit against Eversource Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to halt the scheduled construction of a 13-mile undersea transmission line off the coast of New Hampshire.
Claiming that the project will be harmful to the ecosystem, the pro-renewable foundation, or CLF, told the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire that Eversource's $84 million Seacoast Reliability Project and its permitting violates the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act and other federal environmental regulations.
The CLF also asked the court to suspend or revoke Clean Water Act and Rivers and Harbors Act permitting of the project and to prohibit Eversource from proceeding with construction until it demonstrates compliance with the regulations. The group further demanded that the Army Corps be ordered to conduct an environmental impact statement on the project as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
Rather than prepare an EIS, the CLF asserted that the Army Corps relied on a purpose and need statement that was "unreasonably narrow and driven by" Eversource. The Army Corps "failed to consider the impacts from the project as a whole, and only considered the impacts to jurisdictional waters; it failed to take a 'hard look' at the environmental impacts of the project; and, it failed to adequately identify and evaluate the alternatives," the suit alleged.
In a separate filing, the CLF sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction preventing the construction of the Seacoast Reliability Project and the burying of the transmission line in Little Bay using "jet plow" technology. Construction activity and testing of the jet blow technology is scheduled to begin in September and is expected to take three months to finish.
"The hasty effort to approve Eversource's permit to conduct 'jet plow' activities in Little Bay was inadequate to meet the requirements of federal law or to protect the sensitive environment of the bay," the CLF said. Along with disputing claims by Eversource that the project will not degrade the waterway or harm local oyster beds, the CLF argued that construction of the project will suspend 1,500 tons of highly-concentrated sediments into the bay and release harmful pathogens and contaminants into the estuary.
Meanwhile, the CLF has litigation pending before the New Hampshire Supreme Court asserting that the project still requires approval from the governor's Executive Council.
Since being proposed in 2015, Eversource has altered the project at least twice to reduce potential environmental impacts, including agreeing to bury portions of the line to appease local residents. The proposed 115-kV transmission project will connect substations in Madbury and Portsmouth, N.H., require substation upgrades, and is part of the Seacoast Solution projects aimed at improving reliability in the ISO New England region. According to Eversource, electric demand in New Hampshire's Seacoast region is growing at twice the rate of the rest of the state. State regulators approved the transmission project in December 2018.
