Referendum in U.S. deals blow to Hydro-Québec

Democrats weren't the only losers in elections held Tuesday in the U.S. So was a Canadian-led energy project, rejected by voters in one state referendum.

This spurned project doesn't involve oil, or pipelines, or Western Canada.

It involves a Hydro-Québec corridor to New England — and now its future is in doubt.

Voters in Maine voted about 60-40 to halt construction of the project and force its backers to obtain two-thirds support in the state legislature if they want to complete it. 

That's after the most expensive referendum campaign in state history, where ads for and against the plan lined highways and bombarded television viewers.

Legal fights are likely. 

The line is already being built and worth billions of dollars to the Quebec public utility and to its American partners. 

But on Tuesday night, project opponents hugged and cheered. At a party held amid fire pits at an outdoor beer garden in Farmington, they demanded a pause on ongoing work while state politicians weigh their response. 

"We're going to certainly be demanding that they stop construction right away," said Sandi Howard, a teacher who organized opponents against the project.

"If they're wanting to take that financial risk [of building], that's on them. This is a strong message to them that we really don't want this project."

Opponents viewed the project as providing too little benefit considering the damage to their state's forests; they accused two foreign corporations, Hydro-Québec and its partner, the Spanish-owned Central Maine Power, of using their state as a conduit to the project's main customer, Massachusetts.

Known as the New England Clean Energy Corridor, the 233-kilometre project would cut a new path down through northern Maine and increase Hydro-Québec's energy exports to the U.S. by roughly one-third by connecting to an existing line on its way to Massachusetts.

It is projected to generate $10 billion US for Hydro Quebec over 20 years.

Yet it crashed into clamorous resistance along the route from a consortium of unlikely allies — just as it had in an earlier ill-fated effort to cross New Hampshire.