Maine's Board of Environmental Protection is scheduled to consider Nov. 19 whether to uphold, change or reject the state's approval of the conservation plan for the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line. Department of Environmental Protection staff are recommending that it keep the approval but add conditions, including a mature-forest area of at least 10,000 acres.
The board meets at 9 a.m. at 109 Capitol St., Augusta, according to its meeting notice. The notice says the session is not a hearing and the board may not consider evidence outside the appeal record.
The appeal was filed Dec. 18, 2025, by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Maine Audubon, the Appalachian Mountain Club and Trout Unlimited. It challenges a Nov. 18, 2025 department order that approved NECEC Transmission LLC's plan to conserve 50,063 acres near the 53-mile northern segment of the 145-mile line, according to the staff memo. The board heard arguments Sept. 17 and directed staff to return with a revised order.
The appellants object to two findings: that the plan promotes habitat connectivity and conservation of mature forest, and that two habitat blocks smaller than 5,000 acres are appropriate. They asked the board to reverse and send the matter back, or to add conditions, including buying at least 10,000 additional acres outright for permanent management.
The proposed order would grant the appeal in part and deny it in part. It would not require the outright purchase. It would require three revisions to the conservation plan, conservation easement and forest management plan within 60 days of the order. The first is a new definition of mature forest. Under the plan the company submitted, mature forest means at least 80 square feet of basal area per acre in trees 4.5 inches or more in diameter, plus 60 square feet in trees at least 50 feet tall. The proposed order would instead set stand-by-stand standards. For hardwood stands, those are at least 25 cords per acre and 80 square feet of basal area, with minimums for larger trees.
The second would replace the company's "shifting mosaic" approach, which rotates mature forest across the easement area as harvesting occurs, with a Special Management Area of at least 10,000 acres, not counting riparian buffers. The area could be no more than two blocks of at least 5,000 contiguous acres each, and it would have to consist entirely of mature forest by Jan. 1, 2127, and not be harvested before then, except as the existing easement allows for responding to non-native pests, pathogens or disease. The block-size language tracks what the appellants proposed. The third would give stands now 100 years old or older the same no-harvest protection as 100-foot stream buffers.
On the second objection, the proposed order finds that the two smaller blocks, designated E3 and E4, are appropriate because leaving land beside the corridor open to development would worsen fragmentation.
The order is unsigned and undated. The company's response to the appeal is part of the record the order cites, and the staff memo does not say how NECEC Transmission views the proposed conditions.
