WOODSTOCK — Selectmen from Woodstock have joined Stewartstown, Campton and Landaff in sending a letter of strong protest against the Northern Pass project to the premier of Quebec, Jean Charest.

Copies were also sent to top executives of crown-owned Hydro-Quebec of Canada, which is in partnership on the project with Northeast Utilities, parent company of Public Service of New Hampshire.

The plan seeks to build a 180-mile high-voltage transmission line that would cross from the Canadian border into Pittsburg and follow a route south through New Hampshire to Deerfield. The $1.1 billion project would affect more than 30 towns and cross through the White Mountains National Forest.

In a letter originally written by attorney Bob Baker, Woodstock Selectmen James Fadden Jr., Joel Bourassa and R. Gil Rand “advise” Premier Charest and Hydro-Quebec that they consider Northern Pass activities “reprehensible and contrary to our town's wishes as approved by the voters”.

The letter also references a link to Hydro-Quebec's website that states its projects must be “favorably received” by local communities and advises the premier the project “is not favorably received in this community and that is an understatement.”

Woodstock selectmen note in the letter “we have been proud of our good relations with Quebec as a neighbor and as a trade partner.”

“The continuance of the Northern Pass project, however, is causing irreparable damage to our relationship with, and feelings toward, Quebec. The goals and local methods of Quebec's crown corporation are at irreconcilable odds with our local values and environment.”

The website for Northern Pass Transmission, LLC, states the Woodstock section of the project would be 7.16-miles long and located in an existing transmission right-of-way, with a proposed .34 mile expansion.

Existing transmission towers in Woodstock's right-of-way range from 42 to 70 feet tall, with an average height of 48 feet.

Proposed Northern Pass towers would range from 80 to 105 feet tall.

A transmission right-of-way exists along the proposed Northern Pass route from the town of Groveton to Deerfield, but application for federal approval of the project is currently on hold while developers seek a right-of-way route from the Canadian border to Groveton.

kgarofalo@newstote.com