A May 25 photo posted on American Whitewater’s website shows state Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton and his staff lumbering on a large raft across a small run of Connecticut River white water. The short rapid they just surfed over is at a place called Rock Dam in Turners Falls. It drops directly into a small, crescent-shaped pool — the sole natural spawning and nursery site for the federally-endangered Connecticut River shortnose sturgeon.
That site is the last place you’d want to see the commonwealth’s highest environmental official rafting in May. Rock Dam is critical habitat for survival of the river’s most endangered migratory fish. There’s no other place like it in the ecosystem. It’s also where the state-endangered yellow lampmussel was last recorded in this reach. Ecological protection is key to preserving that natural heritage there for future generations.
Why Beaton was at Rock Dam on the heels of the state’s failure to protect endangered timber rattlesnakes in their remaining habitat is a puzzlement. Rock Dam is literally where the Connecticut has long been left for dead. Each spring, it is alternately starved and inundated — making spawning and survival of young for the shortnose sturgeon nearly impossible. Rapid pumped storage water fluctuations also help make successful upstream passage for wild American shad, sea lamprey, and blueback herring a 1-in-10 proposition above Turners Falls.
The Energy and Environmental Affairs officers were joyriding on test flows returned there specifically for environmental protection. They were meant to allow wild fish to re-enter critical habitats where they might successfully gather and then spawn — a natural pool that would subsequently nurture developing young in critical weeks lasting through mid-June.
Those flows were determined by John Bullard, regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, to not drop below minimum thresholds that would drive spawning sturgeon out. The Fisheries Service mandated the higher limits through June 3 to ensure sturgeon had sufficient time there. That meant healing water for the most impoverished 2.7 miles of habitat on the entire 410-mile Connecticut.
The shortnose is a dinosaur-age fish — a yard-long creature with a shark-like tail and toughened leathery “scutes” instead of spindly scales. It’s the second species listed under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act and the most exhaustively studied endangered migratory fish in the river. It has long had a federal recovery plan, one now including the boatload of science documenting building blocks necessary for its survival.
None call for boaters bashing over them during spawning gatherings or beaching in shallows where developing embryos shelter. If this iconic fish is ever to begin the road back from the brink of extinction, mandated protections and uninterrupted flows are critical at Rock Dam.
Dr. Boyd Kynard, formerly of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey Conte Lab and UMass, led the 17 years of studies that documented Rock Dam as the species’ sole natural spawning site in the ecosystem. He recently stated, “as to protection of the pre-spawning, spawning, and rearing area at Rock Dam, exclusion dates for boating should be the same as the dates for water flow, 15 March to 15 June.”
A “watered” Rock Dam had long-offered sturgeons a wide choice of depths and flow levels they could selectively adjust to, and readjust to, when natural surface flow or river temperatures fluctuated beyond optimal conditions for spawning. And that cobble and sand pool was ideal for dispersing tiny eggs and young. Only when flow is present does Rock Dam regain its function as an ancient species shelter, protecting early life stages in currents circulating through cobbled shoals.
In the current five-year Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing process that will govern hydro operations and ecological conditions here for decades, the Connecticut River Watershed Council and Appalachian Mountain Club are jointly advocating new access points into this delicate habitat for whitewater interests. Both have sat at commision hearings where Rock Dam has been named as critical habitat.
In joint testimony to the commission, they’ve argued that their interests in increased flows come from aquatic habitat concerns, as well as recreation desires. Yet it was the mountain club that posted dates on its website of those ecological study flows, urging white-water enthusiasts to exploit them: “Fish Study to Provide Paddling Opportunities: May to June 2016.”
Secretary Beaton needs better advice.
He could turn to several expert appointees representing the commonwealth on the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission.
State Fisheries & Wildlife Director Jack Buckley studied Connecticut River shortnose sturgeon at UMass. Buckley’s anadromous fish project leader Caleb Slater is also well-versed on critical Rock Dam habitat.
And U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s Region 5 Director Wendi Weber also sits at the Atlantic Salmon Commission table. Dr. Weber studied shortnose sturgeon in Georgia’s rivers.
Ultimately, turning a failing Connecticut River migratory fisheries restoration in Massachusetts into a success story will require government leaders embracing solid government science.
Karl Meyer is on the Fish and Aquatics Study Team for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hydro-relicensing studies of the Turners Falls and Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage projects. He is a member of the Society of Envi