Frequent visitors of the Musquash Conservation Area should take note of a construction project that will be taking place along its borders; it will not only serve to improve electrical services in the area, but also to assist the town’s environment in more ways than one.
Eversource Energy, one of the foremost providers of electricity and natural gas in New Hampshire, is in the process of cutting through a relatively small portion of the Musquash near Hickory Hill Drive, all in an effort to make the process of traversing the area easier for Eversource employees who need to attend to electrical wires. The project will involve cutting down a series of trees, allowing them to produce a staging area which will then have gravel put down so that Eversource vehicles can cross through with little to no trouble.
This plan had already been introduced to the Conservation Commission in the past, most recently during their May 23 meeting. Eversource has also been in the midst of several such improvements to the area, alerting the Town Council in their previous meetings of their plans to widen the right-of-ways containing transmission towers in order to alter or add more towers to increase performance.
While cutting away at the Musquash may rub some residents the wrong way, the commission seems quite content with the project. For starters, the commission has maintained a fairly strong relationship with Eversource by working together in the past to assure that the impact of their projects on the environment is minimal. Eversource’s project will also help pave the way for Town Forester Charlie Moreno to do a series of timber cuts to promote forest health.
One of the major factors that interest the commission is the new potential for creating more parking spaces around the Musquash. Commission members have long been working to increase parking spaces around the conservation area as a means of encouraging more people to visit the area. They have made suggestions in the past to increase parking around the likes of Scobie Pond, Tanager Way, and Kendall Pond, but when residents in those areas were invited to voice their opinions on such projects with the commission on June 27, the commission was met with much opposition, with residents preferring that the commission members focus more on making these areas safer and more secure.
Therefore, with Eversource’s project all but guaranteed at this point, commission members are hoping to take advantage of this added space and finally give more residents the chance to embrace the beauty of the Musquash. Although there has been some dispute between members over whether their funds should be put towards buying more land or beautifying the land they currently own, most are in agreement that parking is one of their major priorities.