On Feb. 19, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection held a hybrid public hearing at Greenfield Community College for the public to provide comments on MassDEP’s Draft 401 Water Quality Certificate. The 401 Water Quality Certificate would allow FirstLight continued operation of its Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station for another 50 years. No one spoke in favor of the draft certificate.

Without a doubt, the DEP should deny the 401 Water Quality Certificate for FirstLight’s operation of the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station. Why the DEP would consider otherwise is beyond comprehension, and why the state agency would not adhere to the federal Clean Water Act is beyond comprehension.

There is no question that Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage is extremely environmentally destructive and has been for the past 50-plus years. The river is pulled backward for many miles, life is lost in the turbines, erosion is severe, the ecosystem is altered, discharge is not tested, Indigenous concerns are not respected nor protected.

Why is the DEP allowing itself to be complicit in this ecocide? The DEP is entrusted with the public good and yet is proposing a water quality certificate that will allow this ecocide to continue for 50 more years.

There is nothing gained from Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage. Primarily fossil fuels and nuclear energy pump the water up the mountain. The energy that is produced when the water is released is not clean energy, as claimed. There is no gain, in fact there is a net loss from the upward pull.

Any potential clean energy is lost in the dirty energy used in pumping the river up. The ratepayers pay for both of these efforts, and everyone loses when it comes to the environment.

Much is made of the need for energy storage and Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage’s ability to meet emergency power needs. How often, for how long and at what cost does FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage provide for these emergency needs? A reasonable question for someone wanting to assess, if this ecocide is at all defensible. Sorry, we are told the public can’t have this information.

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

If it were defensible, the information would be available and published far and wide. What is known is that FirstLight made $158 million in profit in 2018 and registered itself in Delaware’s tax haven in 2019.

In this time of global climate collapse, why would the DEP choose ecocide and in doing so choose to benefit a multinational, profit-driven entity like FirstLight?

Obviously, Massachusetts’ state government energy policy is flawed. Why not provide solar with battery storage to every home and building in Massachusetts and develop community solar where this is not possible? And where is the serious, full-on energy reduction program so desperately and urgently needed right now? Nowhere!

It is well known that continuing to consume energy at our present rate and beyond, as we are, will result in genuine pain and suffering for all, as well as the inability to survive on this planet. Entrusting our energy production to large, private, profit-driven entities will not ease this suffering or change the end result. It is suicide. Massachusetts’ government must acknowledge and include this consciousness in its policies and practices. Local small-scale public energy systems must be favored for the benefit of people and planet.

On March 5, the U.S. Supreme Court interfered with the Clean Water Act’s ability to protect our waters from poisonous and harmful discharge, the major mandate of this act. What will MassDEP do now? Will it succumb to the pressures of an ever-increasing profitable effort to destroy the Connecticut River and its ecosystem? Or will the it do its job and stand up for the Connecticut River and human survival?

The time for MassDEP to stand up is now. Do your job! Stop the ecocide! Protect people and planet! Deny the 401 Water Quality Certificate for FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage.

Priscilla Lynch of Conway is a member of Connecticut River Defenders.