InDepthNH (http://indepthnh.org/series/north-country/page/2/)
Photo courtesy of Chris Jensen
Here you will find stories about the North Country. Just writing those words, though, I sense a fight coming. When I lived in Bethlehem, I could unequivocally state that I lived in the North Country, but things got muddy when I moved to North Conway. You see some folks believe the North Country includes only communities north of the state’s four notches: Franconia Notch, Crawford Notch, Pinkham Notch, and Dixville Notch.
For InDepthNH.org’s purposes, we’ll use a little common sense and maybe stretch that a little farther south. And get ready for a call from our columnist John Harrigan, who has been called the King of The North Country, when we get it wrong.
-Nancy West
CONCORD — Construction work on the Northern Pass Transmission project through Concord will impact Karner blue butterfly habitat in the pine barrens, a project official testified Thursday.
InDepthNH.org’s Nancy West and NHPR’s Sam Evans-Brown were interviewed by John Dankosky about Northern Pass in a segment on renewable energy for NEXT, a show about New England from the New England News Collaborative and WNPR.
The race is on to bring clean, renewable energy to the Northeast and Hydro-Quebec holds the biggest reservoir of electricity.
| CONCORD — The piece of legislation that hundreds of Northern Pass protesters shouted down at the State House a little over two weeks ago – Senate Bill 128 – was retained Tuesday by a 20-1 House committee vote.
For more than 130 years boys and girls – typically from relatively well-to-do families – have been going to summer camps in The White Mountains.
DIXVILLE – If Balsams developer Les Otten got all the necessary permits and financing and opened a world-class resort business in the North Country, Dan Dagesse would have owned a chunk of it.
| While the Forest Society called Northern Pass’ purchase of five North Country properties through middlemen inflated by $500,000 a “shell game,” the project’s spokesperson Martin Murray said ratepayer dollars were not used and it is common to buy property along proposed transmission routes.
| CONCORD — Twenty-two businesses, including the Common Man restaurant and Plymouth State University, would be seriously disrupted if Northern Pass buries transmission lines through downtown Plymouth, according to letters discussed Thursday on Day 9 of the state Site Evaluation Committee’s adjudicative hearing.
Balsams Resort owner Dan Dagesse has sold his share of the closed resort in Dixville Notch to developer Les Otten, a spokesman for Otten confirmed Friday.
| CONCORD – Grafton County Attorney Lara Saffo dropped a bombshell at Thursday’s adjudicative hearing asking Northern Pass experts why the project purchased five North Country properties at highly inflated prices to the tune of $500,000 through four different LLCs instead of directly from the landowners.