Our 2021 Sustainability Report
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Environmental Stewardship
Committed to protecting the land, wildlife and habitat that may interact with our operations throughout New England.
What Does Environmental Stewardship Mean?
We manage land throughout our service territory, much of which is located within large transmission line rights-of-way. That land is a unique habitat for a variety of diverse wildlife, insects, plants and other natural resources that we strive to protect.
We also care for land that the public and property owners can enjoy, taking great care to preserve biodiversity, promote conservation, protect wildlife and cultural resources.
Wildlife And Habitat Protection
We focus on avoiding impacts to rare species within sensitive environmental resource areas through the adoption of protection measures. These measures ensure our footprint is minimized to the greatest extent possible while allowing us access to our equipment and infrastructure.
Through careful vegetation management, a process known as integrated vegetation management, our rights-of-way provide valuable habitat for a variety of rare and specialized species while protecting the system from ingrowing vegetation.
We often work in partnership with government agencies and wildlife biologists to help avoid impacting plants and animals and support a sustainable environment around our operations and infrastructure.
This includes:
Cape Cod Osprey Management
Osprey often perch and nest on power poles and other equipment on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. This can be dangerous for the birds, and can cause reliability issues.
We take proactive measures to prevent Osprey from nesting on our infrastructure, and work with community members to identify problem sites as soon as we can.
Bobcat Research
Gillian the Bobcat lives on land we own in Connecticut, and we're partnering with experts from UConn and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to study her movements, resource needs and how she interacts with the environment.
This partnership is part of our ongoing initiative to build relationships with experts, and work to protect the animals that exist within our territory.
Invasive Vegetation Management
Our land is home to many rare species, including a unique beetle known as the Galerucella beetle, which eats an invasive species of plant called purple loosestrife.
We're partnering with the University of New Hampshire to collect these beetles from our land, and strategically use them across the state to help eradicate the purple loosestrife and allow for a resurgence of native vegetation.
Land Management and Preservation
We own and maintain approximately 40,000 acres of land throughout our service territory, and we manage an additional 15,000 acres of protected watershed land with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, The Nature Conservancy and Aquarion Water Company.
Our Eversource Land Trust consists of nearly 1,000 acres of permanently protected open space, which is open to the public for recreational use.
This land has a wide variety of ecosystems, uses and conservation needs, and we work hard with our partners to promote diverse, native habitats and protect the many functions and resources.
- We develop prescriptive Forest Management Plans for our undeveloped properties to encourage and ensure the development and progression of specific habitats for the promotion of suitable ecosystems for native flora and fauna species.
- We take steps to prevent erosion, control invasive species and promote native environments.
- We work with our partners, regulators and nonprofit organizations to create and maintain recreation trails for passive recreation uses, for research purposes and public enjoyment.
- We take pride in being good neighbors to adjacent landowners.
Environmental Cleanup, Community Education and Historic Preservation
Eversource employees clean up a park in Massachusetts during one of our events.
New Bedford Cleanup
While on a site walk in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with the city's conservation agent, Eversource staff noted an abundance of litter and trash surrounding an otherwise undiscovered historic grist mill and icehouse.
The staff organized a volunteer cleanup of this area and brought in our cultural resources specialist to provide the group with a talk on the history of grist mills and icehouses in the area.
Several cleanups happen across our territory annually.
Native Plant Trust
Because we manage the growth in our land to protect power lines, we've created a space for many native, rare plants grow.
To preserve and identify these plants, we engage in an access agreement with the Native Plant Trust under the New England Plant Conservation Program for survey and seed collection of native, rare plants for the seed bank.
Norwalk River Valley Trail
The invasive Japanese Knotweed plant is an issue across New England, including land in Norwalk Valley, Connecticut.
We granted permission for the Norwalk River Valley Trail (NRVT) to apply for a $10,000 grant from the Natural Resource Conservation Service to remove the invasive vegetation, and then plant native vegetation.
The grant is scheduled to be awarded in 2023 to support NRVT and Eversource in planting native species and continuing the removal of invasive Japanese Knotweed.