PELHAM — A plan by the utility Eversource that calls for the removal of 278 acres of trees extending along 29.3 miles through 11 towns in Hampshire, Hampshire and Franklin counties is drawing renewed concern from Pelham officials.
Formally known as the Transmission Right-of-Way Reliability Program Project, the work in Pelham would occur near the convergence of Amethyst Brook and Buffam Brook, next to the Buffam Falls Conservation Area. The project seeks to ensure vegetation doesn’t encroach on nearby power lines, and could mean taking down trees along North Valley Road to the brook and to the bottom of the gorge.
While Eversource has indicated in its environmental filings with the state that no tree removal “activities are proposed within the Buffam Falls Conservation Area” and “no new tree removal along Buffam Brook or the Buffam Falls Conservation Area is proposed,” town officials are reiterating their concerns about the possible impacts. The plans, first unveiled in 2022, are under review by the state’s Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.
At a Conservation Commission meeting in September, Chairman Dana MacDonald told colleagues that keeping the steep slopes intact is critical, and that a shelterwood cutting strategy, where mature trees are removed gradually, would be appropriate, especially to prevent a similar erosion incident as occurred during a hurricane in the 1950s.
The commission also expects to revise its 2022 letter, which stated: “At the heart of this concern, is that broadly much more cutting is being proposed than appears necessary to protect the lines.”
Three years after filing an expanded environmental notification form and developing what Eversource called the 100-foot modified alternative, the latest draft environmental impact report from August is raising concerns for a citizens group known as Responsible Grid.
That group has put together a website with information and notes that comments on the plan are due to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office by Nov. 21. https://sites.google.com/view/responsiblegrid/eversource.
The scope of work Eversource is proposing stretches from a substation in Ludlow to the south to a substation in Northfield to the north. In between, in addition to Pelham, communities that would be affected by the tree clearing are Amherst, Belchertown and Granby, in Hampshire County, and Shutesbury, Leverett, Montague, Wendell and Erving, in Franklin County.
The original proposal would have removed trees from 370 acres, and led to a protest in October 2022, organized by the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, outside Eversource headquarters on Route 9 in Hadley.
In the 582-page draft environmental impact report submitted to Rebecca Tepper, secretary the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Rebecca Weissman, with SWCA Environmental Consultants in Southborough, wrote. “This program improves system reliability by reducing the number of tree fall-in risks and has proven to be an effective way to create a sustainable vegetative community that can safely coexist with the transmission lines. Eversource’s long-term management objective is to manage these newly cleared areas as early succession habitat and encourage the growth of grasses, forbs and shrubs.”
The current right of way contains a 345-kilovolt overhead transmission line and is 300 feet wide, with an existing maintained width of approximately 125 feet. The project will increase the maintained right of way width to up to 200 feet, for an increase of approximately 75 feet on average from existing cleared width, by cutting trees from within the currently unmaintained and forested portions of the right of way.
For the Responsible Grid group, this could mean the clearance for the wires widening from 252 feet to 576 feet
Before the project can get underway, local reviews will be done by Conservation Commissions.