This commentary is by Karl Meyer of Greenfield, Mass., who’s been a stakeholder, intervenor and a Fish and Aquatics Studies Team volunteer in this Connecticut River dam licensing process since 2012.
In a behind-closed-doors move on St. Patrick’s Day, federal and state environmental representatives entered into an agreement in principle with FirstLight Power to sell the rights of a living Connecticut River to Canada — literally.
FirstLight, basement-bargain hunting to secure a new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license for the river-killing Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station, is parent-owned by Public Sector Investments, a venture capital giant and arm of the Treasury Board of Canada.
Many in the Connecticut River Valley will be heartsick that the chance for a long-awaited renewal of the river’s beleaguered ecosystem in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire has been abandoned by agents signing documents far from public view.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife and the National Marine Fisheries Service entered that agreement with a foreign-owned and now Delaware tax-sheltered corporation, essentially signaling their intent to allow relicensing of the energy-squandering, river-reversing, deadliest contraption ever installed on our 410-mile river.
As guardians of the public trust, each had half a century to end its crushing brutality. None took up the cause. After recently cutting its own FirstLight deal for recreation access on the river in separate Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license negotiations, the Connecticut River Conservancy/Watershed Council’s Director Andy Fisk walked away without signing this new agreement in principle. Apparently he seeks newfound relevance as the come-lately guardian of the hundreds of billions migratory and resident fish killed across the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station’s 50 years of devastation.
The Connecticut River Conservancy, now 70 years old, sat on its hands throughout the murderous rampage. It is still green-washing for Eversource, key donor in its yearly Source-to-Sea Cleanup — the company that actually built this monster when it was called WMECO/Northeast Utilities.
The agency-signed agreement in principle is a soul-crushing document. It enshrines miles of deadened, reversed and suctioned river. It literally resanctions an unbroken conveyor belt of death for the annual killing of hundreds of millions of fish and aquatic animals from three states.
As a journalist long trying to explain Massachusetts’s abandonment and devastation of the life in this New England-wide ecosystem for decades, I’m at a loss to encapsulate the horror that is Northfield. But Shayla Freeland, a young writer from Gill, Mass., wrote perhaps the most succinct summation of the effects of that machine on the river’s life. In a commentary in the Greenfield Recorder on Nov. 19, 2021, she wrote: “The turbines of the pump station suck in life and throw out death.”
That is what’s been agreed to. It sums up the dishonor of these AWOL agencies for a half-century and counting. They’ve now inked the “Sale Pending” death certificate for a once-living river.
The Conte National Fish & Wildlife Refuge is a deathtrap here; talk of a National Blueway is pure fluff. The Connecticut River in Massachusetts is “under agreement” and primed for its final sale, to Canada, cheap. In that agreement in principle, it will be 2030 and 2033 by the time the experimental safe fish passage changes — legally mandated on the Connecticut River since 1872 (a hundred years before Northfield was built) — are installed to maybe quiet a tiny corner of this machine’s ongoing carnage.
The bureaucrats signing this agreement in principle and ultimate license will likely have walked into retirement when these band-aid protections are added. They should be remembered. Signing on as proxy for U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Region 5 director Wendi Weber was Audrey Mayer. Dr. Caleb Slater, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife director of Hatcheries, signed in for Director Mark Tisa. Mr. Jesse Leddick signed for himself as chief of regulatory review for the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, and Christopher Boelke signed off for the National Marine Fisheries Service under boss Julie Crocker, Endangered Species Act Fish, Ecosystems and Energy branch chief.
Northfield is a cash cow. It sucks massive amounts of energy from the grid to reproduce and sell back one-third less, peak-priced energy back into the grid for Canadian profit. This energy wasting machine is unnecessary for day-to-day grid operation. Recent mega-grid failures and cyberattacks make even its usefulness as a few-hour emergency backup questionable.
The gross megawatts it squanders yearly sucking the river backward could directly power the annual needs of many cities and towns up and down this valley. Instead it will suck out a river’s soul.
On Saturday, April 2, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., there will be a stand-out on the Turners Falls Gill-Montague Bridge. Participants will be dressed in black in observance of a Day of Mourning for the Connecticut River.
The public is invited to participate. Take Interstate 91 south to Route 2 east; the bridge is at the second set of traffic lights, on the right.
