 All right, you think we're ready to start, Becky? Well, let's just give it another minute. Yeah, we only have 19 participants. Let's just give it another minute. Sounds good. Can I say a word while we're waiting or should I wait till after? I think we're going to start in just two minutes. Okay. Just one minute, actually. And then I'll get started. So if you've got city council 95 and the buildings and maybe a reason for the wrecks, which would be a reason why the city's going for the mega dam. Okay, I think we should get started. Hi everyone. I'm Becky Bartavix and I am a longtime volunteer for Sierra Club main. We've been working with North American mega dams resistance alliance for the last few years. And we're really happy to bring you this program to talk about what the mega dams have done in our world. And we want to recognize that tonight is a program is dedicated to the memory of voice Richardson who died in March of 2020. He, Sierra Club actually encouraged him to write a book about the work that he had done. It's called James Bay, The Plot to Drown the North Woods, which he published in a 1972. This has to do with the damage to the Cree land, violating the Cree land rights to build the hydro power in James Bay. And he was renowned for the work that he did working with the indigenous peoples of Canada. And we want to recognize his incredible effort. He was very well known. And I encourage you all to look at the work that he has done. Thank you again for, for coming. And we want to start the program. I just want to say that if you would put your questions, please mute everyone. And if you would put questions in the chat box, I will try to curate the questions of the, in the end of the program and after we've heard from our speakers. And so without further ado, I'd like to introduce Meg Sheehan and Meg, would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. Thank you, Becky. And thank you, Sierra Club main chapter for having NAMRA participate in this community conversation. My name is Meg Sheehan and I am coordinator of the North American mega dam resistance alliance. Our mission is to protect rivers and their communities by resisting mega dams and their transmission corridors. Dams should not be part of any climate plan or green new deal or carbonization pathway. Hydro power is not a climate solution, but a climate disaster. Dams are also a humanitarian disaster because they displace people by flooding vast areas of river systems, forests, wetlands and all the river systems that people rely on for food and cultural survival. For millennia, indigenous people in the sub Arctic North, where Canadian hydro dams are located, survived by navigating rivers and winter and summer to fish, hunt and trap. This is the region where hydro Quebec and the other crown corporations have massive dam systems that are being used for export, including over the north of the New England clean energy connect or the CMP projects remain. So now due to the dams in these vast areas, the summer flows and the winter ice no longer follow a seasonal pattern, but fluctuate dramatically, dangerously and sometimes in a deadly way due to dam controls that make it nearly impossible to conduct traditional hunting, fishing and trapping on the river system. Dams cause waterways to become polluted by altering the river flows and creating stagnant pools of deadly toxins and algae blooms. Across Canada, as a result, hydro power dams have polluted the drinking water systems for many, many communities. I also want to talk about climate justice and US energy policy, specifically the main CMP corridor. Hydro power dams are located in remote areas and the communities are marginalized, not only lacking clean water to drink, but often electricity and access to modern communication. In Quebec province, where the electricity for CMP will come from, over 50% of hydro Quebec's dams are built on stolen indigenous lands. The state-owned monopoly, hydro Quebec is facing billions and damages claims from at least six indigenous communities and first nations. Canadian hydro power is part of Canada's legacy of colonialism and racism and is a form of resource extraction, like tar sands and mining. Indigenous people were removed from this land by colonial settlers who built an economy on hydro power, timber, mining and extraction. The government to this day subsidizes these hydro power dams with funding, marketing support, lacks oversight and environmental assessments that are superficial window dressing. Most of the dams hydro Quebec uses today were built with no environmental study at all. This hydro power development is done by the state's government state-owned monopolies. The profits are paid to the government of the province. These revenues are generated off stolen lands where indigenous communities live and what they describe as third world conditions lacking running water and impoverished while hydro Quebec, Manitoba hydro and the other colonial powers in Canada sell stolen electricity to US consumers who call it green energy. This is environmental racism and an economic and social injustice. The three financial boom goggles commonly being talked about today in Canada are the big mega dams being built for export to the US. Muskrat falls 824 megawatts expected cost to complete over $3 billion plus transmission. Manitoba's kiosk dam 8.7 billion. With a quarter at $4.6 billion. The site see dam at $12 billion. And you can jump to the next slide and see these quarters. There you go. These new dams are being built and more are planned for Canadian government is planning to build 60 more, develop 60% more of the hydro capacity across the country. At a time when only one third of the world's rivers are free flowing. One million species are at risk for extinction. And Canada's forest and river systems are some of the most important carbon sinks on the planet. The Canadian government intends to further marginalize and impoverish indigenous communities and export this electricity as green. And that's what the Canadian government intends to do. Indigenous communities are rising up. In one case, the innu of Labrador in October, 2020, sent hydro Quebec a message saying you owe us $4 billion for the electricity stolen from our lands that you plan to export over CMP. And the bill is 50 years past to 50 years ago. The dam was built on stolen innu of Labrador dams. That's the upper Churchill Falls. And the small wood reservoir. Five first nations in Quebec in October, 2020 sent a similar message to hydro Quebec. That the CMP corridor is selling stolen goods for profits to be made by a van grid, hybrid roller, hydro Quebec and CMP. The NICAC, our New England clean energy connect project is a shameful project. It is environmental racism and the height of hypocrisy by the governor Baker and his administration in Massachusetts and Governor Mills who purport to value economic and climate justice. Please help us stop this project and get in touch with me for more information. Thanks. Thank you, Meg. I hope you will, if you have any questions for Meg, you can put them in the chat and now I would like to introduce Mark Creswick. Mark, can you introduce yourself? Happily, thank you. I am the deputy director for the Sierra Club in the Northeast. So I support the Sierra Club's work on energy and climate justice. I am the deputy director for the Sierra Club in the West Virginia and Virginia up to Maine. As well as co-managing our building electrification work nationally. I will spend a little bit of time because I would like to get into Q&A. Feel free to ask as many questions as you want through the chat function or at the conclusion of Kevin's talk in just a moment. Thank you to Meg, for your work on the region. I would like to ask a few questions. I think it is a very egregious false claims and destruction that Hydro-Quebac and other Crown corporations in Canada have devastated the consumers, communities, the environment over the many, many years that they have developed these massive mega dams. about, which is absolutely right, is the fact that Hydro-Quebec and some of these other companies are asking and getting decision makers, state officials and city officials in the Northeast to require customers to pay higher electricity prices, to pay more money than they would otherwise pay in order to subsidize these destructive activities and to send money from our customers, through our electricity bills up to Canada to pay for this destruction and these devastating impenetrable. They do this under the guise and other claims of some kind of benefit to New England and New York Northeast customers. The facts are simply not there to support those claims. The most egregious approval so far is the approval of contracts in Massachusetts for Massachusetts ratepayers to pay for both the New England Clean Energy Connect project as well as subsidize, again, the existing dams, the dams that have already been built, that are already operating and already providing power. The simple question is what on earth, why would Massachusetts officials fund and approve these egregious contracts? Particularly when they don't require Hydro-Quebec to even provide more electricity than they are currently providing into the region. So customers in Massachusetts are getting absolutely nothing for these egregious contracts that have been approved and the city of New York is considering exactly the same arrangement. Hydro-Quebec has stated in public official filings that they oppose setting a baseline based on for the amount of electricity sales that they are currently selling into New York and would be required to sell above that baseline to sell more power and Hydro-Quebec opposes that. They want subsidies from our customers in order to pay for things they're already doing and already providing into the region. In the impact of that is to suppress wind and solar, the kind of clean energy resources that actually create jobs here in the region that particularly offshore wind that provides coastal communities with a future, solar that can be distributed and cited many different parts of the system, creating jobs and tax revenues in rural areas and throughout the region, as well as onshore wind, energy efficiency, the kind of resources that actually reduce climate pollution, that create jobs that spur revenues and tax base. Those are the sorts of investments that customers in the Northeast could be supporting instead of shipping their money out of the country due to intense lobbying campaigns, money that's poured in by Hydro-Quebec and Crown corporations into the political discussions in the region. It's just particularly in Maine, where some of these foreign companies own the electric system that have poured millions of dollars into advertisements and lobbying against communities that are standing up for their rights to protect the environment. The New England Clean Energy Connect where communities are standing up to say, no, we don't want this transmission line for a costly, expensive, destructive Canadian Hydro to come through our communities, to harm our communities, are just swamped by the millions of dollars that Hydro-Quebec and some of these other companies pour into lobbying and public relations. It just is a deeply troubling situation and Sierra Club has been fighting these contracts through, as they've moved through discussions with state officials and ultimately approvals. We've also been organizing and supporting the work to stop the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line. Kevin's gonna talk about some of the specifics that are coming up with the Army Corps, so I'll turn it over to him in just a moment, but I just want to kind of read a particular call for action for anyone on this webinar. Again, the Massachusetts situation has kind of already gone, but New York is really the place where the next, where Hydro-Quebec and Canadian companies are really trying hard to secure these kind of out-of-market subsidies for their dirty, dangerous, destructive products and kind of making the same outrageous claims. So really want to encourage you all to focus on New York, to convince decision makers there, particularly in the city of New York, to support wind and solar and long-term contracts for the kind of resources that actually reduce climate pollution, that create new jobs, keep money in the community, and don't destroy communities, the environment. So just really want to encourage you all to speak up to New York state officials, New York city officials, and really see if we can get that stopped. Again, Massachusetts kind of already moved on. The last gasp Kevin's going to talk about. So that's where I'll leave it, and pass it back to Becky to introduce Kevin. Thank you very much. I look forward to answering any of your questions in the chat. Thanks, Mark. That was great. And so then I want to now introduce you to Kevin Cassidy. Kevin, again, will you introduce yourself? And please feel free to put some questions in the chat. Thanks a lot, Becky. My name is Kevin Cassidy. I'm an environmental lawyer with the Earthrise Law Center, which is the environmental legal clinic of Lewis and Clark Law School, which is located in Portland, Oregon, but I am myself based in Massachusetts, and really appreciative of getting the opportunity to come here. Thanks for the invitation tonight, and especially on a program to honor voice Richardson. I just bought his book, Strangers Devour the Land. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. You know, I'm one of the newbies, I guess, to some of the dam resistance that's been going on. Probably one of the naive guys who thought we really can't be still building these kinds of dams in North America in the 21st century, can we? And turns out, yes, they are. And, you know, I guess about three years ago, you know, Meg called me up because she heard about some rumor about some undersea line going down to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant, which Meg has been opposing since she was, you know, in elementary school, I think. And so anything having to do with Pilgrim, she was interested in, and I watched her build this amazing coalition, Namra, you know, really from the ground up since then and been able to work with Namra. And then through that got to meet the folks in the main Sierra Club chapter, you know, Becky and Joan and has been fantastic working with them. So thanks a lot to the chapter for having me tonight. I'm gonna talk a little bit about, as Mark said, there's a, you know, there's a lot of opposition to the CMP transmission line, which is also the NECAC, you'll probably hear referred to as a couple of different acronyms that's going through Maine that's gonna deliver this electricity to Massachusetts. And there's, you know, tons of opposition to this project up in Maine, and there's been a lot of challenges to illegal challenges at the state administrative level. There was a more than 80,000 signatures gathered to put it on a referendum for the ballot, the election next week that was struck down by the Supreme Court, Maine Supreme Court. And as Mark said, one of the sort of final hurdles that the project needs to get over is the federal permitting process. And that's what I'm gonna talk about. And I'll just say at the outset, I do represent the Sierra Club. I am their lawyer, so there may be in terms of the Q and A, there may be some client confidentiality issues that I may not be able to answer questions about because I don't want to, it's because I need to protect the confidentiality of the client, the Sierra Club. But so the outstanding federal permits right now for this transmission line coming in through Maine, which is gonna be about 145 miles of line coming from the Canadian border through the Western Maine mountains, cutting across the very southern edge of the Maine North Woods. Really the first 53 miles, which is segment one of the project is through relatively undeveloped forest land, really beautiful area. It's gonna impact a lot of wetlands, aquatic resources, vernal pools, stream, numerous stream and river crossings, they're gonna deforest a lot of areas that currently have a lot of forest cover, which is going to impact the native brook trout in the area. That's one of the really last strongholds for native brook trout in the Eastern United States. You have federal and threatened and endangered species in the area, Canada Lynx, Atlantic Salmon. It's really this area is at the heart of a really globally significant area of biodiversity. And this is gonna instantly become one of the largest fragmenting features in the area. So there's a lot of environmental harm just in Maine alone, not even mentioning or not even thinking about the harm that Meg and Mark were speaking about in terms of the dams themselves up in Canada and the indigenous communities up there. So in order to run the line through that area of Maine, because there's gonna be impacts to aquatic resources, the CMP needs a clean water act permit. It's also known as a 404, section 404 permit because they're gonna be filling some wetlands, impacting some other waters of the United States. And they applied for that permit back in 2017. They also need a presidential permit, what's called the presidential permit from the Department of Energy. And that's because they're crossing an international border. And both of those permits have not yet been issued. As part of both issuing both of those permits, both the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the clean water act permit and the Department of Energy, which is responsible for the presidential permit need to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act or otherwise known as NEPA. And this is really, this statute passed in 1969 is one of the keystone environmental statutes in this country that requires federal agencies when they're taking an action to determine whether or not it's gonna have a significant impact on the environment. And so for the last two or three years, the Corps and DOE have been going through this process with CMP largely behind closed doors. There's not a lot of this process that has been really open to the public, which is one of the problems we have with this. NEPA really requires that the agencies seek out and involve the public as much as possible through commenting and public hearings and their environmental analysis. And the Corps and DOE really haven't done that up to this point at all. There was a public comment process in March of 2019. So we did submit some comments on behalf of the Sierra Club. We asked them to have a public hearing. They refused. Eventually, one of the congressional delegation from Maine asked the Corps to have a public hearing and they did so in December of 2019. And that's really it. And even the public notice that they put out in March, EPA, which has joint jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act permit, told the Corps that its public notice was deficient. It should reissue it. It didn't have enough information and that it also should put its draft environmental documents up on their website, none of which the Corps decided to do. So NEPA, when an agency is analyzing a project under NEPA, they can go basically in two directions. They can go and do an environmental assessment and decide there's not a significant impact. And then they issue what's called a finding of no significant impact, F-O-N-S-I, so a FONSI. If they find there's a significant impact, then they have to go to a next step, which is a more robust environmental analysis and involves more public participation, which is important. And that's called an environmental impact statement or an EIS. The Corps, as we've come to learn, doesn't like to do EISs in Maine. Apparently they haven't done one for any federal project in Maine for at least the last 10 years. And they didn't wanna do one for this project either. So they started with an EA and environmental assessment and they have continued along that path. And we, well, you all may be familiar with the Freedom of Information Act, also another statute, federal statute, that allows you to ask federal agencies for documents, which they then have an obligation to turn over to you. We started asking the Corps on behalf of the Sierra Club in January under the Freedom of Information Act for documents. And they would provide them, but then the cutoff date would happen, so we'd have to ask them again. And we'd done four FOIA requests with the Corps since January. And in the last one, we received from the Corps their final environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact, which was dated July 7th of 2020, which they did and signed and authorized completely internally. And as far as we know, and I've looked, it's never shown up on their website. They never published it. They never put it out for public comment. They just signed it and then continued to negotiate on the Clean Water Act permit that they still need to finalize. So as it stands, there's no EIS and the Corps is not planning on doing one because they've already made a finding of no significant impact. I mean, even as I say it for a project like this, it sounds absurd. This is a 145 mile transmission corridor that's gonna have major impacts to the natural resources environment in Maine. And yet the Corps decided that they didn't need to do any EIS, didn't need any more public participation. And that's where it stands. Now with DOE, so now we're waiting around for the Corps to issue the Clean Water Act permit, which once the Corps does that, then the Corps' federal business is over. With DOE, they took a slightly different tact and have said publicly, they in a letter to Senator Susan Collins, that they were going to issue their environmental assessment for public comment. That has not happened yet. And so we're waiting for DOE to put out that. So we can see what they have to say and comment on it. One of the things that came out of the Corps' environmental analysis was that DOE apparently had done an internal report or study about the greenhouse gas emissions impacts from this project. And they concluded that the project would be beneficial for greenhouse gas emissions. We haven't seen that report yet. We haven't seen that document. Obviously we haven't vetted it. We don't know what it says, but it's referenced in the Corps' environmental assessment and the Corps apparently is relying on it too. So we'll see where this goes. Once the Clean Water Act permit is issued, once the presidential permit is issued, essentially that'll be the end of the federal process and we'll have to examine those permits and the environmental analysis and see what options there are for the Sierra Club. So I think I'll leave it there and I'm happy to answer any questions. I see I'm using a lot of acronyms that's always a danger with an environmental lawyer. So if anyone wants to ask me any questions, I'd be happy to spell out an acronym or follow up on anything. Thank you. Thanks so much, Kevin. We have a couple of questions so far. One of them is, and I think you mostly answered it from Kerry Neiderman. She asks, somebody went somewhere else. She asks, how can they use the name New England Clean Energy and what regulations do they have to be accountable for? I think answering that question for Maine, they have gone through the DEP, Department of Environmental Protection process, but really what we're looking at is the last permit that is needed or the last two permits and one is from the Department of Energy, DOE. And maybe you want to just mention something about that, Kevin, about or not? Did you, yeah. About the presidential permit? Just that we're well, or the fact that, I guess, filing a lawsuit to, we have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Energy. No, we haven't. Oh, oh, oh, oh. There's no lawsuit because the Department of Energy has not filed, has not, oh, I'm sorry, you're talking about the FOIA lawsuit. I'm sorry, okay, separate lawsuit. The Department of Energy has not filed their presidential permit yet for the project, but unlike the core, the Department of Energy, when we sent them a Freedom of Information Act request, they never really responded. And that's unfortunately typical of a lot of federal agencies these days. They're either delaying or not responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. And that's one of the reasons we don't have that report from DOE. So Becky's right. Last Friday, actually two Fridays ago, we filed a federal lawsuit in Maine against the Department of Energy to force them to turn over the documents that we had requested back in January. So that's in process right now. So then there's another question from Catherine Scopic. Is there going to be a new EIS? Yeah, I mean, unless a court ultimately tells the core or the Department of Energy to do one, probably the answer is no. The core is not gonna do one on its own. They've already finished their environmental analysis with an environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact that they finalized in July. So as far as they're concerned, they're done. In fact, they wrote a letter, the Penobscot Nation asked the core, among many other groups and individuals were asking the core to do an environmental impact statement. And I should say, the reason environmental impact statement is important is because it's more detailed analysis and there's a lot more opportunity for public comment and public vetting of what the core is doing. Most of what the core did in terms of its analysis for this so far has been done with CMP and outside the public view. So with an environmental impact statement, they have to put the draft impact statement out for public comment they're required to. Here they weren't necessarily required to do it, although we think they should have. And so that's the importance of that. One of the important things about that distinction. But the core doesn't like to do them in Maine and unless they, I think, get told by a core, they're probably not gonna do it. Thank you. I think this question might be for Meg. How can companies get away with manipulating local and national policies and laws so that those especially diverse and indigenous peoples who are actually living at the source of the energy project are not considered in the decision-making process of approving such a project? Is this a question for me? I think so. Oh, okay. Well, Kevin can answer that too, but I will just say that after studying the record for the Champlain Hudson Power Express in New York and knowing what I know about the Vermont line and CMP, no federal agency or state agency has ever looked at the impacts of hydrogams and greenhouse gas impacts in Canada. I simply say it's beyond the border and beyond our jurisdiction. But I know Kevin has talked about that in some of his comments and maybe you can elaborate on why you think that should no longer be the position of the agencies. Yeah, I mean, it's a hard one, Meg. I mean, the court, the case law, we have, unfortunately, we humans create these borders and the border, of course, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and impacts from transmission corridors like this don't necessarily recognize borders. So there is a thing that makes it difficult to raise extraterritorial impacts from projects that are happening in the United States. We think that, we submitted comments on behalf of the Sierra Club that raise these issues. And we think in terms of environmental justice and simply the idea that this project, it's all connected. It's one large project that stretches down from those dams to the transmission corridor into Maine and into Massachusetts without the dams. There's no electricity that is something that the federal agencies should be taking into account. Legally, it's a tough argument. Unfortunately. So Roger Wheeler asks, the Conservation Law Foundation is very involved in improving NICAC, why? That's definitely the best. I'm sorry, and it's just like I was talking to the GIS. We can't speak, I have to say we cannot speak for why the Conservation Law Foundation is involved and why they chose to have a different position in Maine than they had in New Hampshire. We have certainly asked them maybe Meg, you would like to mention your meetings with them, I don't know. Sure, along with our indigenous allies from Canada, we have met with Conservation Law Foundation's president and talked to them and explained the impacts of the dams, the climate justice issues. Of course, CLF is very into environmental justice and environmental racism. And we explained how this is morally wrong and it is environmental racism not to consider these impacts in Canada, in their policymaking and in their policies that support Canadian hydro and imports of Canadian hydro, even while acknowledging as they do as CLF does that the fossil fuel of the climate impacts of Canadian hydro dams are on par with fossil fuels, specifically natural gas. So there are a lot of discrepancies there in addition to them not supporting and fighting very hard against this very same hydro dam corridor in New Hampshire, the Northern Pass, but then supporting the same exact, basically, project in Maine not to discount that there are differences in the on-the-ground impacts in Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire, but the impacts on the frontline communities and the indigenous communities in Canada are the same. So we are urging them to take a second look at this and hopefully they will, perhaps, come to a different conclusion. That's my wishful thinking. Thank you. There's a question. Is there any way to challenge the course finding that there is no significant impact, the FONSI finding? Sure, I could take that. There is. It would involve filing a lawsuit in federal court and raising the claim that the finding is essentially arbitrary and capricious and not supported by the evidence. So, you know, there is an avenue and that's probably as much as I can say about that on this Zoom call. Thank you. So then I think Catherine Skopak asks, what about their new protected habitat area for Atlantic sturgeon? Did not this cause new reasons for an updated EIS? I don't know about that. Do you know about that, Kevin or Mark, or anybody? You know, I don't. I didn't, they did do, they did, the court did as part of their environmental analysis. There was an ES Endangered Species Act consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service. They identified Atlantic salmon, Canada Lynx, the Northern Longyear bat and a species, an orchid species of plant that were listed as threatened or endangered and that would be within the project area. So, the sturgeon were not considered and I don't know of any critical habitat for sturgeon in the area where the project is gonna be. Yeah, this is Meg. I think Catherine's probably referring to the sturgeon habitat in the Hudson River. Okay. Maybe more. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Well, okay, so the similar project to the CMP corridor is the Champlain Hudson Power Express. As we mentioned, 330 miles from the Canadian border to Queens, New York or Astoria, New York. And 50, I believe about 50 miles of that goes under the Hudson River, a large portion also goes under the Lake Champlain. But the EIS for that was approved in approximately 2012. And since that time, the National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency designated new habitat for the endangered population of sturgeon in the Hudson River. So the Center for Biological Diversity, NAMRA, North American Megadamn Resistance Alliance, and the Innu Nation of Labrador filed what is called a notice of violation letter in October or perhaps late September of 2020 with the Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers requiring them in New York to go back and look at that endangered salmon habitat in the river and to assess the impacts of the buried cable under the river on this newly designated habitat. So that's a notice of violation letter. The next step on that is for the federal agencies to respond to us, to tell us whether they are willing to do a new study of the habitat. And if they don't, then we have the option of pursuing legal means in court. But I don't believe there is any similar opportunity in Maine because again, this was a specific situation where new habitat was designated since the EIS was done. And it's interesting to note as well that a full environmental impact statement was done in New York for that corridor, but the same exact same federal agencies in Maine are refusing to do a full environmental impact statement. Yeah, same for the corridor in New Hampshire. They did an EIS, so environmental impact statement. There is a question, I'm not exactly sure what it means. Is there something between Sierra Club Maine and in Canada? Just to mention that we are working with the Sierra Club Canada on fighting hydro Quebec and other mega dams. But Mark, I don't know if you would like to talk a little bit about Sierra Club's national policy vis-a-vis the hydro dams. I mean, I think the Sierra Club's national policy for many decades now has largely opposed massive mega dams like this. We've worked very hard with a number of other partners to see some of these mega dams retired and taken down in various parts of the country. At the same time, you know, run of the river hydro where you're not a massive mega dam is something that we generally support. So just really gets to these mega dams of massive impacts that we oppose, whereas it is possible to develop low impact, run of the river hydro that doesn't have these same impacts and still gets the benefits. So that's definitely something that we navigate. But again, our focus is on getting wind and solar truly clean renewable resources ramped up as quickly as possible. And we spend a lot of time in resources making that happen across the country. Thanks, Mark. I'm not sure if that answered your question. This is Catherine again, Catherine Scopic. Do you want to unmute yourself and ask your question if that was not what you were asking? I'm very happy to know that this is national's policy. I've heard that so it's good to have a confirmed. And thank you, Becky. I was just wondering since this is so much a Canadian problem as well as the United States problem, if there is working together with the Canadian Sierra Club as well as say Maine or any other of the Sierra Club groups to kind of pull our resources and work together on this problem. That's really what that question was after. And thank you, Meg, so much for going into that great detail on the Atlantic Sturgeon Endangered Habitat. I appreciate that very much, Meg. Welcome. Yeah, so the question is the Canadian Sierra Club that I know very little about how it functions is it the same in Canada is here and do we work together on this problem? Yes, we do work together on this problem. We have met with, we are meeting with Gretchen Fitzgerald. Have she's come to many of our meetings. They of course have a serious problem in New Brunswick with coal, but we are working with them. They are not as extensive. I don't believe there are chapters in every, maybe there are chapters in every province, but I don't know. There certainly is, maybe Joan, do you know more about, I know you're on here. Could you mention something about Canadian Sierra Club, Sierra Club Canada? Can you unmute yourself, Joan? We have been talking with Gretchen Fitzgerald. They are very concerned. They have, she's in Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia has a lot of coal-fired power plants and of course, we know we have campaign in US, beyond coal, Mark's been working on that for a long time. So we're very concerned about something new that's come up about called the Atlantic Loop. We're not sure exactly what the Canadians want to do with that, whenever you talk about transmission lines and connecting things, we always think that it'll probably impact Maine and also, the USA is the recipient of their power. So we're working with her on that and worried about the possibility that more energy coming from Canada will impact and become a probable cause to build a new dam in Labrador Gulf Island dam. So we're just starting to work closely with them on a campaign to bring that awareness to the public and including here in Maine and in the US and Meg could probably add something to that. She, I want to- Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to add something, Meg, to that? Sure, just that, as I mentioned, the Canadian government has stated under oath in the proceedings before the International Trade Commission this past summer that they plan to develop 60% more hydro capacity they call it. They don't call these river systems, they don't call them rivers and they don't call them people's ancestral lands, they call them hydro capacity. So they clearly have a plan that going ahead with the three mega dams that I mentioned, you can hear a lot more about that on Namr's webinar that we did on October 14th about the site sea dam and Sarah Cox, the award-winning author of Reaching the Peace was on that webinar and she explained the situation in Canada very well. She's a reporter with the Canadian outlet, The Narwhal. But as many know, the first part of the lower Turch Hill Falls hydro dam complex that the Crown Corporation now for Energy, that's Newfoundland and Labrador Corporation, completed in 2019 is the Musgrat Falls Dam. The second part of that is Gull Island and the Canadian government has signaled that there is an intent to develop that dam. It would be three times the size of Musgrat Falls at around 2,200 megawatts. It would completely obliterate Gull Island that is used and has been used for millennia by Indigenous communities for annual gatherings as well as releasing far more methylmercury into the river systems and flooding more Indigenous lands. So we are concerned about what's going on in Canada and very concerned about some of the reports coming out of the government and even some NGOs about decarbonization pathways in Canada and how hydro fits into that. Thank you. Thanks Meg. There's another question that has to do with could this be taken to the United Nations and given it's across a border and does the United Nations, what does the United Nations say about hydropower? We know recently, I think today we received some information about the EU. Do you want to mention that Meg? Or was it Julian who said it that the EU is considering disallowing hydropower as part of their renewable portfolio standard? Well, there was a sign on letter from 150 groups in Europe opposing hydro dams, even small hydro dams across Europe as to the UN. There have been at least two that I know of petitions to the UN under the UN declaration of rights of Indigenous people are UNDRIP involving Canadian mega dams. There was one that was brought to the special repertoire on toxins in 2019 or 2018, I believe, by a community from Labrador and that involved the methylmercury poisoning of Indigenous foods by Canadian hydro dams in particular muskrat falls that would make that methylmercury poisoning worse. I'll just briefly talk about it and the UN and why it went to the UN. So methylmercury is produced when the mercury in organic materials is flooded by dams. It converts into a neurotoxin that enters into the food supply that is relied on by Indigenous communities in remote locations. And this has been going on since these dams were first constructed and flooded forests in the 1960s and 70s. So Indigenous communities in Canada have already have higher levels of methylmercury in their bloodstreams. Hydro-Quebec has never done a full epidemiological study. The idea is according to Hydro-Quebec that the Indigenous community should just not eat the foods. They should refrain from eating too much of the fish that's contaminated with methylmercury. So that led to the petition to UNGRIP from the communities in Labrador. There was a Harvard study that showed that the new dams in Labrador would cause increased levels of methylmercury poisoning in Indigenous communities. And there was also an UNGRIP petition involving Indigenous rights with the Site C Megadam that's being built by BC Hydro in British Columbia. Sorry, thank you very much. There's obviously a lot happening worldwide. There's, of course, Indigenous people are being hurt all over the world by these Megadam. So it's an international problem. So the next question from Julia St. Clair, is there any government agency or certain officials that could pressure Army Corps to complete an EIS for NICEC at this point? And so maybe I'll throw this to Kevin. Yeah, sure. Unlikely, they've been received some pressure from, as I said, some of the congressional delegation in Maine has specifically requested it. And they haven't taken them up on it. The EPA has sort of largely remained on the sidelines, unfortunately. I think they could have played a larger role here and put some more pressure on the Corps to do an EIS. I think that's what EPA, I think if you got EPA in a room without the politicians, some of the career people, they probably would say they think an EIS was appropriate here, but I think at this point, it's either, it's gonna probably have to be a federal judge if it's gonna be anyone to make them do it. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's unfortunate that the interagency review team, the information from all of these various agencies is kind of behind closed door. So it's, you have to do a FOIA to see what they've done, but we do know that the EPA did suggest to the Army Corps that they ought to do an EIS, correct? Well, I'm not sure I would say that, Becky. I think they, in their letter to the Corps, they said their public comment was deficient. They should put it out. They should be more transparent. They should put all their environmental assessment on their website, put the documents up so people can see what the Corps is talking about and analyzing. But I'm not sure EPA is, certainly publicly they haven't come out as far as I know and asked and told the Corps they should do any EIS. Great, thanks. Are there any further questions of anyone? I don't see any more directly in the chat. Becky, did we answer Gilbert's question? Oh, did I, did I miss one? Oh, you wanted to have a new administration. Oh gosh, I didn't see that. Right. I'm going to ask, why don't you take that one, Mark? I think right now most of the, the real question is if their new administration comes in, assuming all the permits have already been issued, can they kind of remand, voluntarily remove remand? So that's probably a question to Kevin. I don't know that they would, voluntary remand even with a new administration, but happy to let Kevin speak to that if he wants. I think it's probably an uphill lift given kind of where some of the different states are at. So, yeah. Yeah, I tend to agree with Mark. You know, unfortunately, you know, hydro like this probably falls into some, you know, I mean, we got, you know, the vice president saying he's not going to ban fracking in Pennsylvania, which I think, you know, he feels like he has to say right now to win that state. But, you know, fracking is, you know, I think even seeing is even more, you know, at least viewed as more of a problem for, you know, emissions than hydro is certainly. And so I think, you know, there's, there is a lot of misinformation out there about the impacts of, especially these mega dams, and especially their greenhouse gas emissions impacts. And until some of that gets, you know, really straightened out and, you know, people become more aware through some of the work that the Sierra Club and NAMR are doing. I think that's helping a lot. It's going to be, it's going to be hard for even a new administration to walk away from some hydro. But I think, you know, I think technically they could do it. I mean, I think that, you know, you've seen sort of the back and forth with the core up in Pebble Mine in, in Alaska, when the administration's changed. So it's certainly the new administration's prerogative to be able to relook at, at some, at some of the actions the previous administration has taken. Thank you. Let's see. Meg is asking, can you comment Kevin on the claim of the innu against hydro Quebec and the comments of the five First Nations to DOE, Department of Energy on CMP? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure, Meg. You know, I've seen those and certainly the comments to, to, to, to DOE. You know, they're, they're still very much in the environmental assessment process. And thankfully they're going to put out there, you know, if they stay true to what they said, they're going to put out their environmental assessment for public comment. So just, I would say this is a call to action, I guess, for folks on this, on this call. When that happens, you know, it's going to be, there's going to be 30 days. When DOE puts out that environmental assessment for folks to comment on it. That's, that's the one that's related to the presidential permit. And so really important to, you know, make those comments, get them in, get as many people commenting on that as possible, really digging into some of their analysis and, and see if, you know, if it, if it holds up. So that's, you know, and I think, you know, the, the, the First Nations and the, and even, you know, and some of the tribes in, in Maine, you know, they, they, there's some real compelling testimony that they've been giving and that they continue to give about the impacts of these, these dams. And hopefully, hopefully the agencies will, will start to listen to it. There's a question for Meg. Do you know the status of in New York City with DeBlasio wanting to sign on with HQ, Hydro Quebec quickly or very soon? Yes. I saw a recent quote in the press by Sophie Bouchaud, President and CEO of Hydro Quebec saying that she is quote unquote hopeful and hopes that there will be a deal signed within the next two months. So as Mark mentioned, it really is urgent that folks do as much as they can to to pressure the city not to sign that contract and to try to stop the, the Champlain Hudson Power Express. We also were quite dismayed, although we're still looking into it to see that the city of New York's climate office was very supportive of the tier four recs are renewable energy credits subsidies for hydropower. It's unclear to me whether Hydro Quebec's electricity would qualify for that subsidies. I think there are some hoops there that they have to jump through that they might not be able to do. And I feel like those subsidies were seeming to favor in-state hydropower and in-state renewables. But I feel that that is all part of the political maneuverings by Hydro Quebec, by the Quebec government, by the governors and premieres lobbying and Hydro Quebec's lobbyists and the Quebec government's lobbyists, obviously with Governor Cuomo, with Mayor de Blasio, trying to get that contract signed before there's a new administration. I think maybe when Sophie Brochot mentioned that, she was thinking about an election, the mayoral elections in New York City. So the next few months are critical in terms of that contract as well. So we know there's a lot of behind the scenes maneuvering going on there. It's a significant amount of money that the Canadian Crown is putting towards advocating for their own benefit, which I think is pretty disgusting, actually, that they are spending so much money in Maine and in New York. And I think it's got to be, in all of our communities, we need to be taking some action about how much money is being spent to try to tip the balance towards Canadian Hydro instead of local resources. Yeah, absolutely. Becky, if I could just... This is Mark. Yeah. We'll do that for a moment. I think one of the most important things to highlight with New York City decision makers in particular is the fact that Hydro Quebec is on record opposing selling more power, being required to sell more power into New York than they're currently selling, right? They're asking to be paid by New York City ratepayers more money for absolutely nothing. I know there was at a private chat earlier on this thread highlighting a council member in New York City saying, oh, well, how else are we going to replace Indian Point? This has nothing to do with Indian Point nuclear plan, right? Indian Point's going to shut down next year. The plan to replace Indian Point is well underway. There's no possibility of providing any power pursuant to these contracts, even if they were required to sell additional power prior to that point. So it's just there's a lot of misinformation being thrown around in New York City on these topics that really cutting through that chase is very important. And Becky, if you don't mind, I'm happy to jump to Andy's question too. I answered in the chat. It'd be great if you want to jump to that. And then I might say something about it as well. Yeah, absolutely. So Andy had asked, are we supporting local micro districts for solar and wind? Absolutely. It's definitely something we're putting as much resources as we can into to advance. And then frankly, our points in Massachusetts on these contracts was you should be contracting with wind and solar. And there were thousands of megawatts of wind and solar projects that bid into the exact same request for proposals that ultimately the contracts were awarded to the Canadian hydro projects, which is just to me, just so horrendous, right? And that the actual projects and that the contracts for any CEC, the transmission line from Maine and Hydro-Quebec, weren't even the highest ranked. They weren't the cheapest. They didn't have the most benefits. It's just really a horrible situation where there were higher ranked projects that didn't move forward that Massachusetts officials should have selected instead of these contracts. And that's the exact same thing New York should do, right? Is do an open source RFP, see the kind of wind and solar contracts are getting that actually provide benefits that create jobs that deliver real climate pollution reductions. It would be it just and then select those projects instead of Canadian hydro is exactly what should be going on here. And that's what we've been advocating for in both New England and New York all along here. Thank you for clarifying. Yes, RFP is request for proposal. Just in case some people don't know necessarily what an RFP is. I just wanted to mention that, you know, we have in Sierra Club Maine is certainly very active in looking to support micro grids and solar and wind in the state of Maine. We're particularly interested in supporting off shore wind and where properly cited on shore wind. But our, you know, we're the local micro grids such as happened in Booth Bay are really valuable resources that are to be developed. And I think we feel very strongly about that. That those have been overlooked and certainly CMP has been unwilling to, you know, move forward or neither as the PUC pushed those forward. And that would be both very strategically and improvement in security in our grid as well as really promoting local the local economy. So just just to mention that with, you know, as as Andy, Andy, I think you know that that was a question from me, but thank you for asking that. And it does seem as though local projects, you know, can really make a difference in local communities such as in Denmark. Now I'm losing track of questions. There's some questioning about local law 95, which that must have to do with New York because I don't know anything about it. So do you want to take that, Meg? Yes, local law 97. Yes. Yeah. Sure. We did a, we did a webinar on this. And it is local law 97, which is a very ambitious Greenhouse Gas Reduction. Law that New York City passed in 2019. But unfortunately at the last minute, Hydro Quebec lobbyists were able to get into city hall and insert a provision in that law at the very last minute. That allows Hydro Quebec's Canadian hydro power to be used to offset or be used instead of those deep energy retrofits. So the law requires building owners to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by conservation and efficiency and so forth are using renewables. But if they don't want to bother, say Trump Tower doesn't want to do any energy retrofits, they can buy offsets or renewable energy credits from Hydro Quebec. So that was part of Hydro Quebec's, you know, one of the, their schemes, one of the ways that they thought they would get their foot in the door to be part of this so-called clean energy, energy plan for New York City, along with getting the state level subsidies. So yeah, very concerned about that. And obvious greenwashing. Again, this is all a fraudulent greenwashing scam. Hydro Quebec and none of the other Canadian hydro companies have ever provided a complete carbon accounting or greenhouse gas accounting of the direct emissions from their hundreds of different generating facilities. So Hydro Quebec has 63 dam facilities in Quebec and Labrador that it uses to export electricity to the United States. And when it gets to Massachusetts, for example, the greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts inventory, greenhouse gas inventory are accounted as zero. Study after study, including Hydro Quebec's own scientific studies, the one or two peer reviewed studies that they have done show that there are, in fact, greenhouse gas emissions created by the reservoirs and by the dam operations themselves. So Hydro Quebec is getting away with this as are all the other Canadian hydro dam crown corporations and the Canadian government itself, the government of Quebec promote this scheme that this is low carbon or in some cases zero carbon and that we don't need to count any of the emissions from these 63 generating facilities. I saw a quote, I think last week in the newspaper by one of Hydro Quebec's media people saying, that's not the way it's done. We don't count emissions from our individual generating stations. Well, that is the way it's done. If you are a fossil fuel plant, you would have to measure the greenhouse gas emissions from your smokestack and you would have to comply with state and local regulations for reducing those emissions under various climate plans. Well, Hydro Quebec can't just say, you know, we're low carbon and we're not going to provide you with any data from any of our generating stations. That is not the goal. We're in a climate emergency. We can't play shell games with Hydro Quebec's emissions from its different generating stations. We need to know where that carbon is coming from. We need to know how much is emitted every time they raise and lower the reservoir and cause erosion and cause carbon sequestering for us to be flooded. So, you know, this is a climate emergency and this is just unacceptable greenwashing and fraudulent, you know, shell games in my mind. Yes, I agree completely. I was going to say, I never mind the boreal loss of the boreal forest, which is, you know, we can, we can't afford to lose. Let's see. There's, so there's a question about micro grids. Micro grids probably should be a community conversation of their own and it would be really great to highlight the one in Booth Bay, but even small hospitals can be micro grids. They're not, they're not necessarily batteries of themselves in and of themselves, but what they do is reduce the cost of, of new transmission lines because you do a lot of the sequestering of energy in, in the local community. And I encourage you to look at the Booth Bay project where they put a lot of solar in, they installed a lot of LED bulbs and they actually froze ice in a sort of a reverse refrigeration process that they then used to cool buildings during the day. And so they, which was a very old fashioned way of doing something, but it was a new, a new take on an old fashioned process. And they avoided a new transmission line to Booth Bay and the cost of those ratepayers of millions of dollars. So I think it was $18 million that it was going to cost and they, it cost them six. So in the, you know, in that local area. So it's, and it generated a lot of business locally. So that's, you know, one advantage, but there's also, you know, we recently had a community conversation about what's been happening on Isla Ho and they have a, an interesting, very interesting battery system that has been developed that I think could be used in many local communities that does not use lithium ion batteries, but uses semiconductors. And I encourage you to look back at our archive of community conversations to, to hear more about that. So, I don't know if there are any. So Luke Truman is asking, do you know if the percent of electricity lost in transmitting the power from Canada to Massachusetts, from Canada to Massachusetts or New York? You know anything about that? Oh, you Meg, you answered that question. I don't know. Maybe someone else does. I know there is line loss, but I don't know how much. Thanks for asking that, Luke. Okay. Well, are there, are there, we can, we can find that out. I'm pretty sure that that answer, we can come up with that answer. Are there any further questions? Well, I, I really appreciate everybody joining tonight. It's been really interesting. Of course, there's just so much more that we can learn about what's happening in Canada and happening here and keep your eyes peeled on what's happening both in New York and in Massachusetts, but especially here in Maine. And such a great conversation. I want to mention a couple of things. One, there is a citizens initiative again, against the New England clean energy connect project. And there will be people collecting signatures at the polls for that project, for that citizens initiative. Many people in Maine have already voted, but if you haven't in Maine, please consider signing that when you go to the polls. And or sign up to collect signatures for that citizens initiative. There will be also some information about a consumer owned utility. The language has not yet been released for that citizens initiative, but that will also, there will be people at the polls talking about that as well. So I encourage you to consider doing that. And then I think we have a slide. Oh, take action. Okay. So as you can see, you can email Governor Mills or Governor Baker about this project. We have certainly been advocating with the governors of the New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers to have them, to teach them about what we do know. And hopefully we can persuade them to think differently. I don't know if Mark wants to quickly mention anything about that, but any work that any of you can do to reach out to the governors, we would be happy to, we'd be happy to support you doing that. And I think this will be in the chat. Is that correct, Marina? So that you can get these, this information. Yes, I'll save the chat for everyone. Okay. Thank you. And then I think that there's another slide for an upcoming event. Yeah. Thank you. This, I can, this is Meg. I can talk a little bit about this some upcoming event. We really want to encourage you to join us. It's going to be very exciting. As you may know, the conference of parties, the UN annual conference of parties talking about climate agreements has been postponed. It was supposed to be held in Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland this year, but some groups are organizing side conferences. And this is one that NAMRA is participating in, along with our allies in Canada, Juaniz Katan, and with dam resistors from Brazil and Switzerland. It's called from the ground up. And NAMRA with our indigenous allies from Canada will be participating in a one hour presentation on hydro dams and why hydropower is a fall solution to the climate crisis. We will be joined by this year's winner of the human, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, an indigenous woman from Brazil. And again, our allies from Canada. So this will be a really interesting and exciting event. It's on November 14th, which is a Saturday, but we will be streaming it live on our Facebook page and we'll be sending out information about that. And we will be participating virtually and possibly in person at the National Day of Morning in Plymouth, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving Day with the United Native Americans of New England and indigenous community members from around the world to show up in Plymouth to talk about indigenous sovereignty and colonialism. So please join us on those events as well. Well, thank you, everyone. It's been a really, really interesting. And there's further information in the, if you want to save the chat, which you can click on, you know, the chat will allow you to save it. If you click on the three little buttons, then you can save all the information that has been stored in the chat. If you have further information, please feel free to get in touch with us at Sierra Club or to NAMRA, Sierra Club, main chat, main dot chapter at Sierra Club.org or email coordinator dot NAMRA at gmail.com. And thank you so much to Mark and Kevin and Meg for this incredible presentation. Yes. And Sierra Club has a annual celebration. We're showing the film tomorrow, which we will give people who register a week to watch. And then there will be an amazing list of folks talking about moving forward in a positive direction towards a new world that we hope we will be able to engage in coming forward, going forward. If you'd like to register, it's Sierra Club dot org slash main. You will find our annual celebration on the website. So thank you very much, everyone. And we really appreciate your coming tonight. Thank you, Meg, Kevin and Mark really again, appreciate your time. Thank you. And thank you for Marina and Julian for organizing us. Thanks a lot, everyone. Good night.