The ITC Lake Erie Connector, introduced to county residents last year, is an underwater high voltage DC cable to be run from Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada to Erie County, PA. It will consist of two high voltage DC cables, +/- 320 kV (320,000 volts DC). It travels 72 miles underwater, 7 miles underground from landfall west of Erie Bluffs Park to a new +/- 320 kV HVDC converter station (converts the +/- 320 kv Direct Current to 345 kV Alternating Current) in Conneaut Township, where the 345 kV AC then runs 2153 feet underground to the Erie West Penelec substation. The project connects the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) grid in Canada with the PJM Interconnection grid in the USA.
The documents are available now and the public is invited to examine them and make comments.
Public notice of the comment period:
Notice of availability Lake Erie Connector Project Draft Environmental Assessment The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is evaluating whether to issue a Presidential permit to ITC Lake Erie Connector, LLC (applicant) to construct, operate and maintain a new electric transmission line across the U.S.-Canada border in Lake Erie, Pennsylvania.
DOE prepared a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to evaluate the potential environmental consequences of issuing a Presidential permit to the applicant. The draft EA is available for review on the following website: www.lakeerieconnectorea.com. DOE encourages your participation in this process.
Public comments on the draft EA will be accepted through July 5, 2016. Comments on the draft EA can be submitted in writing to Mr. Brian Mills at: Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE-20), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20585; via e-mail to Brian.Mills@hq.doe.gov; by facsimile to (202) 586-8008; or through the project website at http://www.lakeerieconnectorea.com (preferred method). Envelopes and the subject line of e-mails should be labeled “LEC Draft EA Comments.” All comments received on or before July 5, 2016 will be considered in preparation of the final EA
Interesting note: The entire PA portion of the cable project runs through the area currently proposed for the Lake Erie Quadrangle National Marine Sanctuary.
Because of the hundreds of pages in the documents covering the details of this project, it might cause some readers to be overwhelmed, especially with the large volume of technical information within them. Some promoters of the Lake Erie Connector might consider that a feature, not a bug.
There is a lot to take in here and we’ll be going over the documents to summarize what we find, but we thought it was important to put this information out now so you could get a closer look right away.
Link: ITC Lake Erie Connector Main Document
Link: ITC Lake Erie Connector Appendix
Link: ITC Lake Erie Connector all documentation
Tom Wasilewski says
June 3, 2016 at 10:36 amThe U.S. Department of Energy is rushing the approval process of this transmission line. The draft environmental assessment should be made available in hard copies at locations in Erie County, PA. Public meetings should be scheduled currently to discuss the draft EA. The need for this transmission line has not been proved. And why should the line go underwater for approx. 100 miles when an approx. 30 mile direct route across Lake Erie would be the least disruptive to the environment. This project appears to be geared towards the proposed industrial wind turbine development of Lake Erie especially in Erie County, PA and Ashtabula County, Ohio.
Paul Crowe says
June 3, 2016 at 10:50 amThat’s actually 100 kilometers or 62 miles.
Things seem to be moving fast on a lot of projects right now. Some people in Washington might be anticipating a big change after the election and they’re trying to cram in as much as possible before someone starts asking questions and looking too closely.
Douglas Lavery says
June 7, 2016 at 9:32 pmI have brought this project up to the Erie County Council on May 17,2016. I live with 1000 feet +/- of the proposed convertor hall in Conneaut Twp. Carol Lol has been my contact thru council and she has set up a public meeting to ask the questions I have asked council to ITC. This meeting will be held on June,21,2016 at noon in the Erie courthouse. I don’t think the public can speak. If a large public attendance is present it can help my case to have the project stopped. Some of the issues I have brought up were ITC has sold to a Canadian company called Fortis and Fortis has sold 20% to a Singapore company GIC. the American bald eagle live relatively close to the site and the noise from the fans to control the heat generated from inside the hall could effect the natural flight patterns. Property value decrease because of the hall. Water flow and quality destroyed. and many other issues. Please tell as my as you can to help stop this project because the profit will not be spent in Erie County or America. See you at the meeting or call your Erie County council rep to ask to stop this project. Thank You.