Environmental advocates discuss health of Connecticut River

AMHERST — More than 30 people learned about the health of the Connecticut River, and the impact that hydroelectric facilities have on it, during a panel discussion in the Amherst-Pelham Regional High School library on Sunday.

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Amherst, the panel included five speakers, including Joe Graveline and David Brule from the Nolumbeka Project, University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Eve Vogel, Western Mass Rights of Nature co-founder Sarah Matthews, and Nina Gordon-Kirsch, Massachusetts river steward with the Connecticut River Conservancy.

“We are the ones that need to forge a new agreement with our long river,” said Brule, who serves as president of the nonprofit dedicated to cultural and historical preservation of Native American history. “This is what today will be about; this is what our job is about.”

Panelists spoke in depth about the renewal of operating licenses for the Turners Falls Dam and the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station — two hydroelectric facilities in western Massachusetts operated by FirstLight Hydro Generating Co.

Gordon-Kirsch explained that the hydropower system involves pulling water out of the Connecticut River, damaging its ecosystems.

“This has huge impacts on the river,” she said. “They are pulling water up to the top, and then they are bringing it down. … It causes erosion, the banks can’t be stable, there’s no plants that can actually grab hold because they either don’t have water or they are inundated by water.”

Both Graveline and Gordon-Kirsch said the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station results in a net loss of energy, as it takes more energy to pump the water up the mountain than is generated by the water moving back down the mountain.

“It takes 30% more, approximately, energy to pump the water up onto that mountain than it can possibly produce going down that mountain,” Graveline said.

In an email on Monday afternoon, FirstLight Communications Director Claire Belanger confirmed that Northfield Mountain “requires more energy to charge than it will ultimately discharge,” as is the case with other types of energy storage like phone batteries, Duracell batteries in toys and flashlights, electric vehicle batteries and utility-scale battery energy storage systems.

“That doesn’t make it any less important to the grid,” she wrote. “Energy storage resources are able to provide balance to the grid in real-time, charging when excess power exists in the system and generating when demand is high.”

Vogel, who teaches Earth, geographic and climate sciences, explained the process of “hydropeaking,” where hydroelectric facilities can artificially change the levels of water to match energy needs. This can impact the ecosystem of the river negatively.

“Hydropower is useful for the grid, especially if it can hydropeak. Hydropower harms rivers, especially if it can hydropeak,” Vogel said. “Hydropower operators generate and make money when it is best for the grid. When [the] grid needs additional flexible power the most, hydropeaking and profits can dramatically increase.”

On the environmental side, Vogel said, it’s important to “mitigate and monitor impacts.”

The relicensing process has spanned 13 years and is now nearing the final stages. In late January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued the final Environmental Impact Statement, which marks the latest milestone in the ongoing saga around the energy company seeking new licenses to operate the two hydroelectric facilities, after the company initiated the process in October 2012. FirstLight has been operating on a provisional license since 2018 and has requested a 50-year license from FERC, but has not been formally granted a license at this time.

The Connecticut River Conservancy, along with other organizations such as American Rivers, filed an appeal over the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s issuance of a 401 Water Quality Certification to FirstLight. Obtaining a 401 Water Quality Certification is a requirement of the FERC relicensing process.

“What we are doing in the appeal is we are saying ‘Hey, MassDEP, your water quality certificate doesn’t actually uphold our state water quality standards, for X, Y and Z reasons,” Gordon-Kirsch said. “There’s a bunch of [reasons]. … Some of them [involve the water] flows … below the dam, and erosion, and not protecting sturgeon, which are state and federally endangered.”

Some audience members expressed concern about the health of the Connecticut River. A representative from the Connecticut River Defenders advocacy group called for the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station to be shut down, a statement that was met with a round of applause from those in attendance.

FirstLight was invited by the League of Women Voters to speak at Sunday’s panel, but declined to participate. Belanger confirmed this.

“We communicated to the League of Women Voters that we have been in an active relicensing process for over 13 years that has included multiple opportunities and avenues for local, state and federal entities to provide input, including but not limited to natural resource agencies, non-governmental organizations, tribal coalitions and individual citizens,” Belanger wrote. “However, as the relicensing process is not yet finalized and certain legal proceedings remain active, we would decline to participate at this time.”

Belanger added that, once the relicensing process is complete, FirstLight “would be pleased to participate in forums educating other members of the public about the agreed-upon operational modifications.”

Matthews mentioned the power of community connection when it comes to working together to protect natural resources like the Connecticut River.

“I think of our community building as like knitting together the patches of a quilt,” she said. “Though the obstacles we face — like the Turners [Falls] Dam and Northfield facility — seem immense, we look forward to a time when the river runs free. We remember that enough of us, working together like the power of water, are unstoppable.”

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