p176 Maine\u27s CMP Corridor as a Paracommons : The Spatial Politics of Gains and Harms among Proprietors, Neighbors, Sociological Systems and the Wider Economy

Schemes for linking hydropower to electricity users in the northeastern US have ignited intense controversies that have slowed down or sunk several infrastructure projects. Maine\u27s Spanish-owned utility monopoly, Central Maine Power, proposed the most recent transmission project, the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), or CMP corridor, a $1 billion 145-mile transmission line to bring electricty from Hydro-Québec to Massachusetts through western Maine. Proponents of the CMP Corrideor highlight the project\u27s carbon impacts, rate savings, construction jobs, mitigation package, and property tax impacts. But, the CMP Corridor has also drawn intense grassroots opposition for its impact on fisheries, wildlife, recreational tourism, scenic amenities, and development of domestic renewables. The Corridor opposition has been dismissively characterized as not in my backyard (NIMBY) politics, but multiple sessions of public testimony by opponents and proponents articulated a wide range of perspectives and engaged in wider critiques that can be effectively understood as competing claims on the paracommons. This article uses a content analysis of 113 public testimonies to guide a close reading of opponents\u27 and proponents\u27 statements. The spatial politics and overlapping concerns that drove negotiations tied to future gains and harms that may result from the Corridor