Water is life. FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage (NMPS) is life-killing.

In his recent column, Karl Meyer encouraged us to read Dr. Alex Haro’s comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding the Flows and Fish Passage Agreement in Principle (AIP) for the 50-year NMPSrelicensing [“Sucking the life out of New England’s great river,” Recorder Feb. 10]. Here’s some of what Alex Haro wrote: “… Although the agreement proposes some significant improvements to passage and flow, I find several of the agreed-to actions vague, deficient, untenable, …”

“… the AIP proposes the use of a seasonal … in-river barrier net to exclude some fishes from entrainment into NMPS. … this proposed mitigation has a high probability of failure in effectiveness, due to likely flow and debris events that will likely destroy or compromise the net in the fall months. … The 3/8” and 3/4” mesh net will also do nothing to prevent entrainment of smaller juvenile shad/herring, larval fishes, or other small planktonic organisms; …”

“No alternative measures to mitigate for entrainment at NMPS are proposed. This project has near 100% entrainment mortality for larval and juvenile fishes of all species, and probably similar negative impacts for other planktonic organisms. River flow reversals in low-flow months and significant daily variation in level of bank wetted margins are also environmentally detrimental. Finer-mesh screening or minor reduction in withdrawals will probably not reduce the level of impacts appreciably. Pumped storage projects on river systems are usually far more destructive to aquatic life than in other environments; NMPS was probably a bad idea to begin with. I would therefore encourage FERC to consider modification of NMPS as a closed system with the addition of a lower reservoir, with no or little connection to the Connecticut River. If this alternative proves infeasible, then other means of energy storage for the region ought to be considered.”

Shut NMPS down. (ctriverdefenders.org.) 

Shel Ball

Greenfield