April 25, 2017 — A Canadian company is proposing a 350-mile, sub-sea power transmission cable that could interfere with commercial fishing along the coast of Maine.
If the project is approved, the Atlantic Link cable would be buried about 25 miles offshore of Harpswell, running between New Brunswick, Canada, and Plymouth, Massachusetts. It would affect about 400 lobstermen from Cape Elizabeth to Phippsburg, according to spokesman Gerald Weseen of the Nova Scotia-based energy services company Emera.
Weseen and other project representatives, and staff from the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, conducted a meeting about the project April 21 that drew only two area lobstermen.
“Most of the (interference) is pretty workable,” Glenn Rogers, a Mackerel Cove fisherman from Orr’s Island, said Friday.
Late last month, a collection of Massachusetts utility companies sent out a request for proposals targeting clean energy services in response to a clean energy procurement mandate from that state’s Legislature, Weseen explained.
He said Emera’s plan to channel 900 megawatts of hydro and wind power is the only sub-sea option competing against about a half dozen other proposals.