On October 18, 1972 Congress adopted the Clean Water Act. Six months prior the Recorder reported an accident at Northfield Mountain. At 1:15 a.m. on April 22, a valve failed just as the project neared completion. Its cavernous powerhouse and control flooded to the rafters. When it finally opened in1973, Northfield’s massive suction, miles of reversed river currents and inhalation of hundreds of millions of fish became subject to CWA statutory requirements.
Much remains hidden in FirstLight’s Turners Falls and Northfield license bids. The July 17 Recorder showcased residents exasperated by the siloed-secrecy of a so-called public process by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The secrecy extends to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, signed-on with FirstLight in negotiations over its 401 Water Quality Certification. The non-disclosure-required talks set for late August include the Connecticut River Conservancy, American Rivers and FRCOG.
FirstLight’s lawyers have attempted to have my standing reduced in an adjudicatory hearing appeal of its WQ certifications with DEP’s Office of Appeals and Dispute Resolution. FirstLight’s non-disclosure agreement requires DEP and FRCOG to notify all other settlement parties if they receive any public records law requests for settlement information obtained or exchanged during negotiations. I refused to sign on, due to that specific requirement.
To honor the public’s right to know, here is my FERC testimony, minus graphics, read at Greenfield Community College on July 16, 2025. Italics as presented:
“I’m Karl Meyer. I hold an M.S. in Environmental Science, I’m a journalist, stakeholder, intervenor, and member of the Fish & Aquatics Studies Team in these projects.
I am contesting a new FERC license for Northfield Mountain as its massive impacts in a 3-state, 20-mile basin do not meet state and federal Clean Water Act standards.
Coming generations are imperiled by the glut and heat of the bulk-market energy FERC continues sanctioning without limit.
In science you must begin with ground truth. NMPS did not begin operations until 1973, after the Clean Water Act was adopted by Congress.
This 3-state MA reach is being exploited for coastal cities and Boston’s massive appetites for: AI, high-speed data, casinos, pot grow houses, online gaming and gambling, streaming. Every forest and farm solar battery proposal here comes from venture capital looking to funnel profits through Northfield’s switchyard.
Powered by ISO New England’s massive procurement of natural gas, its neither hydro-powered, nor renewable. It’s a gas plant, wasting virgin electricity sucking the life out of a river to pull it uphill. Its other chief energy source is distant nuclear power. NMPS is a huge energy CONSUMER.
This is an ISO-NE chart from 9:30 last night: What Northfield runs on?
Since 2013, I’ve made 48 FERC filings, study requests, interventions, appeals, an Out of Time protest, and the sole “Transfer of License” challenge to PSP Investments transferring these facilities into separate Delaware tax shelters that merited a hearing in Washington. I filed three chapters from this book centered on federally Connecticut River shortnose sturgeon.
My first question in October 2012, was: Does Northfield’s 15,000 cfs pumping (the equivalent of swallowing all aquatic life in seven 3-bedroom homes each second, 3,600 houses per hour, for hours) reverse a full mile of the Connecticut’s flow?
Northfield Station manager John Howard offered a polite non-denial.
Later 3.3.9 Studies included this 2016 graphic — showing its four-turbine pumping creating a minimum of 3 miles of reversed river — for up to three months each year. Dozens of graphics show a river stilled, sucked and plowed backward, at times for miles.
On May 11, 2023, in answer to FERC’s additional information requests, FirstLight replied in a tiny footnote on page 10:
“The average annual generation consumed by the Northfield Mountain Project under baseline conditions. The average ratio of pumping (1,189,640 MWh average from 2011- 2019) to generating (889,845 MWh average from 2011-2019) is approximately 1.34, meaning it takes 34% more energy to pump than to generate.” MASSIVE WASTE.
FirstLight claims it could power a million homes for up to 7 hours, but that’s after burning through gas that would’ve stayed in the ground, or instead could have directly powered 340,000 additional homes.
There’s no expectation of survival for any egg, larvae or full-size fish drawn into its round-trip turbines. The full deadly waste and carbon footprint of this electric toilet is unknown. But a USFWS 2016 field study estimated that sucked-in shad larvae had led to the estimated loss of 1,029,865 juvenile shad to the river system. Two dozen other species went without study.
This plant can’t be relicensed under federal and state Clean Water Act standards.”
Karl Meyer lives in Greenfield and is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.