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Main number (Boston): 617-725-4005
Alternatives:
Western Mass Office (Springfield): (413) 784-1200
Email: constituent.services@state.ma.us
The person or recording answering the phone will just ask your name, phone number, address, and your point of view. Even if it’s a recording, go ahead and tell it your statement (see below). Staff makes a list of how many calls they receive, likely without much detail. The more calls, the more likely we’ll earn attention. So making the call is more important than getting it perfect!
Sample script - short option
I'm AGAINST Eversource's “WT-11” proposal to unnecessarily clearcut 278 acres in Western Massachusetts. I ask Governor Healey to intervene to require selective management wherever possible. I also ask that stronger statewide standards be established so that future proposals will be less destructive.
Sample script - longer option
I'm calling to ask Gov. Healey to intervene in Eversource's plan to clearcut 278 acres along transmission corridors in 11 Western Massachusetts communities.
Utilities should not be allowed to unnecessarily destroy forests, wetlands, wildlife habitat and other sensitive lands for profit.
I urge Governor Healey to require Eversource to minimize the clearing and use selective vegetation management wherever possible. Eversource should prune, top or remove individual trees that actually threaten transmission lines rather than clearcutting entire swaths of forest.
I also urge the governor to establish stronger statewide standards requiring utilities to demonstrate, with data, that proposed clearing will meaningfully reduce outage risk and to consider less destructive alternatives, especially on environmentally sensitive lands.
With more utility clearing projects threatening thousands of acres of important Western Massachusetts land next, we need these protections now.
People across the region would be furious and heartbroken to see this administration permit Eversource’s greed to ruin these places.
Thank you.
Eversource’s project, known as the WT-11Transmission Right-of-Way Reliability Program, runs 29.3 miles, through Northfield, Erving, Wendell, Montague, Leverett, Shutesbury, Pelham, Belchertown, Amherst, Granby, and Ludlow. It is the first of an extensive series of clearcuts to widen the powerline corridor in Western MA, with another ~2000 acres facing the chainsaw next. State-designated categories of sensitive lands are included, as are places that generations of residents have cherished, with the surrounds of Buffam Falls Conservation Area as a case in point.
In these areas, Eversource has already cleared a powerline corridor 125-335’ wide. Their right-of-way (ROW) is wider, and they want to clear 278 acres more of it, making it 252’-576’ wide. Eversource calls this plan the 100-foot Modified Alternative. “100-foot” refers to the distance that clearing could extend out from each outer edge of the wires. The plan would remove all species of trees and shrubs with mature heights of greater than 15 feet. Based on statements at the April 2026 public meeting in Amherst, the vegetation management would effectively result in the area being clearcut.
Eversource claims their intent is to improve reliability, but that’s a lie. Outages are almost never associated with large transmission lines. Unlike distribution lines, large transmission lines already have wide corridors, federally-mandated annual management, and redundant design for resilience.