BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 7, 2021
Central Maine Power Co. and its allies spent tens of millions in a two-year slog to save its massive hydropower corridor. It looks like no sum could have turned the tide on an anti-corridor campaign that relied on the utility’s deep unpopularity. Mainers handily rejected the corridor in Tuesday’s election, with 59 percent of voters backing a question that aims to kill the project. That public relations problem was an insurmountable challenge. It amounted to an unpopular utility trying to sell an unpopular project. The grassroots fervor belied the fact that the corridor opposition was underwritten by fossil-fuel interests trying to preserve their share of the regional power market.