When voters in China head to the polls in November they will consider whether to approve a moratorium on high-voltage power lines in town. Here, a sign opposing the Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project, proposed by LS Power, is seen in August 2023 along Route 137, right near the town line of China and Winslow. The company, a subsidiary of Missouri-based LS Power, had proposed to extend transmission lines across up to 160 miles to tap into northern Maine’s robust wind power resources, a project many local people vocally opposed. Scott Monroe/Morning Sentinel file

CHINA — Voters will decide in November whether to adopt a temporary moratorium on new high-voltage power lines within town limits after nearly 250 residents signed a petition in support of the ban.

The petition was presented to the China Select Board at its Aug. 26 meeting in response to the proposed Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project, an infrastructure proposal that would send energy generated by wind farms in Aroostook County to consumers in southern Maine and Massachusetts via roughly 150 miles of high-voltage transmission lines through central Maine.

The project received support from the Maine Public Utilities Commission and state Legislature last year before being approved by Gov. Janet Mills as part of her administration’s goal of getting 100% of Maine’s electricity from renewable power sources by 2040.

But the commission ultimately shot down the project in December last year amid concerns of ballooning costs and lengthy project delays. Before the commission’s decision, the project had an estimated cost of $1.8 billion.

Though there have been no major developments on the project in the months since, the Public Utilities Commission’s administrative director, Amy Dumeny, said the commission is “evaluating next steps.”

While the Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project remains stalled, China resident and petition circulator Josh LaVerdiere says the moratorium is meant to send a signal to potential developers of similar projects that may arise in the future.

The town’s property values and rural character would likely be negatively impacted by the construction and maintenance of the 110-foot tall transmission towers required by the project, LaVerdiere said.

Josh LaVerdiere Courtesy photo

“If you’ve got 100-foot-tall towers within a half mile of your house, your value is going to go down,” LaVerdiere said. “Why can’t we put these lines in the power corridors that already exist?”

China’s moratorium would only last 180 days with the option for the Select Board to extend it for additional 180-day bans afterward. Having a rolling moratorium also enables local officials to create and revise ordinances that will better address residents’ specific concerns, according to Town Manager Becky Hapgood.

“The moratorium gets placed first, then it goes to the voters, and in the meantime you have that period of time, whether with the Planning Board or Select Board or both, to draft an ordinance for this,” Hapgood said at the Aug. 26 board meeting.

The petition had been circulating around China since about last November, organizers say, only reaching the minimum number of signatures needed to appear on the ballot in July.

Select Board members declined to say at their Aug. 26 meeting if they would codify the moratorium with an ordinance if passed, but moved to put the question on the November ballot in order to gauge residents’ opinions.

“We should put this on November’s ballot,” said board member Jeanne Marquis. “It had over 200 people asking for it. I think we need to put it out to the public to decide.”

If adopted, China would become the latest rural central Maine town to enact a ban on new high-voltage power lines. At least 10 other towns in the area have adopted analogous moratoriums on power line construction in the years since the Aroostook Gateway project was proposed.

Action in other towns helped spurn the proposed moratorium in China, LaVerdiere said, as the petition borrowed language from ordinances in other towns with similar bans.

Unity residents enacted a similar temporary 180-day moratorium on high-voltage power lines in town last November in a move that officials said was meant to send a message to LS Power, the Missouri-based company that proposed the Aroostook Renewable Gateway Project.

Chuck Noyes, far right, owner of Noyes Family Farm, sits on a tractor wheel and listens to farmers speak in opposition to a proposed transmission corridor during a July 19, 2023, protest on Main Street in Albion. Morning Sentinel file

Farmers in Albion and Benton have previously raised concerns that the power lines would hinder agricultural production and make it more difficult for farms to be certified organic due to the pesticides used to keep trees and other plants from growing within the transmission corridor. Farmers in Albion staged a protest in July 2023 over the proposal, sharing LaVerdiere’s concerns that the high-voltage power lines could hinder family farms and drive down property values.

Municipal moratoriums would likely not hold up under state scrutiny if the Public Utilities Commission reapproved the Aroostook Gateway or another high-voltage transmission line, as state policy supersedes local decisions. Any truly binding changes, LaVerdiere said, must come in the form of a municipal ordinance drafted after the vote in November.

Although the Aroostook Gateway project currently remains stalled, LaVerdiere said the petition continued circulating in order to address underlying concerns that may arise again with future development.

LaVerdiere and other petitioners are also concerned about the potential use of eminent domain to seize residents’ land for the project and a lack of means with which residents can fight back.

“If we succeed and win, then we have 180 days as a town to create an ordinance,” LaVerdiere said. “Whether it has teeth or not against the state or any of these projects will remain to be seen.”