To the Editor:

An April 25 article in the Montreal Gazette, “Second major outage in 3 weeks raises questions about Hydro-Québec’s reliability”, reports, “Hydro-Québec was plunged into another crisis Tuesday after a major power failure left almost 500,000 customers across the province without electricity.” The article notes “the average duration of outages per customer served increased by 63 per cent between 2012 and 2021 — a figure that excludes outages due to major weather events.”

Another article, “Power-hungry Quebec will soon need more hydro dams, Legault says”, reports “Premier François Legault said Friday that Quebec will need to build four or five new dams to meet future power demands, but won’t say which rivers are being targeted to avoid panicking any communities.”

New reservoirs emit enormous amounts of methane as flooded organic matter decomposes, and methane is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first twenty years.

In 2019, CMP’s lobbyists killed legislation, LD 640, which would have required studying the corridor’s climate impact. They told legislators Hydro-Quebec had excess power so no study was necessary. That was not true then, and it’s obviously not true now.

Today, LD 1658 would require a study of the corridor’s global greenhouse gas impact after operating for one year. Fines could be levied if the corridor caused net increases in greenhouse gas emissions. It’s clear legislators cannot trust CMP at its word, and the Maine public deserves to know the truth about the corridor and climate change. The legislature should pass LD 1658.

Emily Ecker

Bryant Pond

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