This commentary is by Kelsey Wentling, river steward for the Connecticut River Conservancy, based in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
FirstLight, the owner and operator of the Turners Falls Dam and the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Project, recently submitted a second proposed settlement agreement, this one focused on recreation and following on the heels of the March Flow and Fish Passage Settlement Agreement.
Together, these two proposed agreements, submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the entity responsible for granting a license to FirstLight, represent the company’s proposals for how the facilities will operate for the next 30 to 50 years.
On the same day that the company submitted the proposed Recreation Settlement Agreement, FirstLight also responded to public comments on the Flow & Fish Agreement. Connecticut River Conservancy, several organizations and dozens of individuals submitted comments regarding this tentative agreement, which includes proposals for how the company will pass fish through the area and release flows for habitat and recreation.
With the submission of these two documents, FirstLight provided us all with an expert demonstration in duplicity, toting its recently submitted Recreation Agreement, then turning around to disparage and disregard the concerns of Western Massachusetts residents in their response to comments on the Flow & Fish Agreement.
The tenor of FirstLight’s response to these comments speaks to the true nature of the company and its attitude toward those who live, work and recreate in the Connecticut River Valley. While there are many positive improvements in the recreation agreement, the juxtaposition between FirstLight’s press release and its response to public comments is whiplash-inducing.
In the same breath, FirstLight boasts in a press release of the “extensive collaboration with dozens of stakeholders,” then dismissed several dozen comments as “postcard-type comments from individuals that appear mostly scripted” in the same-day response to Flow & Fish Agreement comments.
The company christens itself a “proud Franklin County business” while attempting to silence the voices of the residents concerned about the impact of its facilities. Amusingly, similar sugarcoating also makes its way onto the company’s website, which claims Northfield Mountain is known as “the Mountain” in the community, and while I haven’t heard that one, I do hear locals nickname it the “death trap,” in reference to its impact on fish.
FirstLight’s response to comments also includes a motion to strike Connecticut River Conservancy’s comment based on a technicality. This is an unfounded and flawed attempt to disregard our comment and a thinly veiled effort to stifle the voices of individuals or entities that are not in agreement with the company. Clearly, FirstLight is worried that the content of our comment has merit.
Despite the dismissive attitude FirstLight adopts toward public input in the Flow & Fish Agreement, Connecticut River Conservancy supports many of the provisions in the recent Recreation Agreement, which we believe will enhance the experience of a diversity of river-users, while encouraging people to visit Franklin County towns to create relationships with the river. These improvements are essential and, as a conservation organization, we know that access is not only a right for all people but also begets environmental stewardship.
When hydropower companies construct and operate their facilities along waterways, they are using a publicly held resource for private gain. These facilities disrupt and limit the public’s access to rivers and so the hydropower companies are obligated to provide recreational amenities to the community to offset this impact.
The Recreation Agreement will provide improved access for paddlers, opportunities to camp, fish, bike, and picnic along the river while promoting these opportunities through a website.
Initially, Connecticut River Conservancy signed the Agreement in Principle, which led to this final agreement, but true to form, the final agreement includes two late-game additions that we simply cannot support.
First, the final agreement includes a condition that anyone who signs it cannot oppose the Flow & Fish Agreement; we are strongly opposed to several (but not all) conditions of that agreement. Notably, the summer minimum flows proposed by the company in the Flow & Fish Agreement don’t even provide enough water to paddle below the dam on a kayak.
Second, the final agreement includes a new condition that parties must support a request for a 50-year license term, which, again, we oppose given the lack of justification for this extended license term over the next several decades of rapid climate change.
Connecticut River Conservancy is frustrated but not surprised by these additions, which effectively forced recreation stakeholders to choose between the benefits of the recreation agreement or maintaining the freedom to oppose the Flow & Fish Passage Agreement and a 50-year license.
FirstLight again demonstrated that it is more interested in muting the voices of stakeholders than in achieving a comprehensive and inclusive agreement on recreation.
