Living Rivers Flow Downstream

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Washington, DC Attn: Willie L. Phillips, James Danly, Allison Clements, Mark C. Christie,

CT River Defenders
River

THE CONNECTICUT RIVER IS IN TROUBLE.  FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station is the deadliest machine on the Connecticut River. It KILLS year-round.

Northfield suctions the Connecticut River backward and uphill at a rate of 15,000 cubic feet per second. That is the equivalent of the aquatic life in eight three bedroom homes-sucked in, every second, for hours on end.  

From eggs, to larvae, to juvenile and adult fish, there is no expectation of survival for anything pulled through Northfield's massive turbines.  The term for that killing is (fish) entrainment "fish and all aquatic life being transported along the flow of water and OUT of their NORMAL habitat into unnatural or harmful environments."

Northfield Pump Storage Station uses fossil fuels from the grid to operate its massive pull on the river. Although it claims to be green because it produces hydroelectricity when it releases water from the reservoir; it is not "green" energy and contributes to the Climate Emergency.  

FirstLight Power, Inc.  is currently seeking to renew its "license to kill" for another 50 years of destroying the river. This is in direct violation of an 1872 landmark US Supreme Court decision and in contradiction to the century later Federal Clean Water Act (CWA 1972).

Please sign the petition below. Be a voice for the river and say NO to dirty green energy and huge corporate profits.  

LIVING WATERS FLOW DOWNSTREAM!

Petition by
Dorothea Melnicoff
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sponsored by

To: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Washington, DC Attn: Willie L. Phillips, James Danly, Allison Clements, Mark C. Christie,
From: [Your Name]

Re: FERC Project # P-2485

Dear Commissioners;

Whereas FirstLight Power's North Mountain Pumped Storage Station, FERC Project # P-2485 has been operating for 50 years on the Connecticut River in Massachusetts in contradiction to a half century old Federal Clean Water Act (CWA 1972) and Endangered Species Act ( ESA 1973) protections.

And whereas it is lethal emplacement saw it illegally built directly on the Connecticut River in violation of the 1872 landmark US Supreme Court Decision on the Connecticut River guaranteeing the safe up and downstream migration of migratory fish in Holyoke V. Lyman.

And whereas its massive suction and surge visits profound, deadly and horrific impacts on a 23 mile reach of the Connecticut River including its flows, fish, aquatic creatures and water quality in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire, the heart and core of the S.O Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge!

And whereas Northfield's deadly daily use annually obliterates hundreds of millions of juvenile and adult migratory and resident fish, their eggs and larvae produced in the three-state reach of the Connecticut's corridor and has done so for over fifty years.

And whereas Northfield's pumped storage is a power consuming machine and wastes far more virgin energy than it ever produces at peak prices and massive costs, environmental and monetary, to the region's river and to its residents.

And whereas it gorges on the power grid to cause our living Connecticut River to ratchet up and down; forward and back, choking on itself and on our hearts while laying waste to the River's aquatic life, (and in the end all life) as it drags the river into the darkness of Northfield's massive suction.

We the people, demand the immediate shutdown of this illegal operation, and an end to its half-century of licensed ecosystem devastation.