How we see it

• Conte Refuge Action Alert
• Vermont Yankee Court Case
• Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
• Eating What You Catch
• Mass. Integrated List of Waters
• State Threatens Quabbin

Download CRWC's newsletter "Currents & Eddies" or Annual Reports (.pdf)

• Annual Report 2007
• Fall 2007
• Summer 2007
• Spring 2007
• Annual Report 2006
• Fall 2006
• Summer 2006
• Spring 2006

Facts and Figures

• Fifteen-Mile Falls M&E Fund
• Fish Safe to Eat?
• World Water Monitoring Day
• Up To Date Info: Fish, Flow, Floods, Tides, Eagles, Dams, etc.
  
  

Download one of River Steward David Deen's columns on issues affecting the River and the Watershed (PDF) - (coming soon)

In The News

January 4, 2008 - Conte Refuge. "A Chance To Help Plan A Refuge: Citizens Are Asked To Comment On Vast Silvio O. Conte Wildlife Area" The Hartford Courant article (Download the PDF) Read more below.
June 2, 2008 - Vermont Yankee. Radio interview with River Steward David Deen by Bob Paquette, Senior News Producer, WFCR - NPR member station in Amherst, MA. 1 min 30 sec (Download the MP3 - 1MB) Read more below.

On Thursday, May 22, Vermont Environmental Court Judge Meredith Wright issued her ruling on the 2006 appeal by Connecticut River Watershed Council and other environmental groups of Entergy’s proposed variance to increase Connecticut River temperatures at its Vermont Yankee nuclear plant by one additional degree.  The judge’s 38-page decision denied Entergy the right to further increase the temperature of the Connecticut River from the originally permitted date of May 15th to July 7th.  But the ruling otherwise permitted Entergy to by-pass its cooling towers, thereby increasing energy output and profits by heating up the River by another full degree at Vernon during summer and fall.  CRWC’s Executive Director Chelsea Gwyther stated that the Watershed Council will lead an appeal.

The ruling was received as a partial victory on the appeal led by CRWC and joined by Trout Unlimited and the Citizen Awareness Network.  “We are grateful for the new conditions the Vermont Environmental Court has placed on Entergy, including the temperature sensors that will now be required at the fishway,” said the CRWC Executive Director.  Entergy’s initial variance request of May 15, 2006, could have allowed them to increase river temperatures to any level.  Those increases have now been capped at 85 degrees. “Still, we consider the past permit conditions and the new allowances furthering the thermal pollution highly detrimental to aquatic habits, migratory fish, and the River as a whole,” Gwyther said.

CRWC River Steward David Deen and Vermont Law School lead counsel Professor Patrick Parenteau also welcomed parts of the decision--including Judge Wright’s narrowing by three weeks the annual window for new heated discharge and the fishway temperature sensors.  There will now be an accurate record of how much thermal pollution is entering the river at Entergy’s Vernon plant.  But both river advocates were disappointed by other aspects of the ruling.  Vermont Yankee can currently discharge heated water at rates of up to 543 million gallons per day at a temperature of 105 degrees into the river.  Current conditions allow the plant’s operations to increase river temperatures by as much as 5 degrees.  Entergy can now add one additional degree of heat to the river  from early July to mid-October.

But Judge Wright’s ruling left the door open for an appeal of underlying permit issues, including variances allowed in 1991 that permitted Vermont Yankee their initial five degree temperature increase.  Those 1991 changes in the river temperature regime at Vermont Yankee occurred in the same year American shad numbers peaked at the Vernon fishway--some 37,000 were recorded in 1991, with 520,000 counted passing Holyoke dam.  There was a final bump for here-to-fore increasing shad on the river the next season, with a record of 720,000 counted at Holyoke in 1992.  But after 1992, overall shad returns to the river began a steady  decline that continues to this day.  Entergy’s own figures show that shad reaching  the Vernon Pool have declined by over 99% since the early 1990s.  Just one hundred fish made it past Vernon in 2007.  The thermal plume from Vermont Yankee was tracked as far south as Holyoke dam, well over 50 miles downstream. 

Background

Vermont Yankee’s super-heated discharges, some as high as 105 degrees, create a thermal plume that has been shown to extend downstream at least fifty miles to Holyoke Dam in Massachusetts.  Higher river temperatures degrade the ecosystem and hurt migratory fish by inhibiting spawning and damaging the viability of eggs.  They also adversely affect feeding behavior, increase vulnerability to predation, and the incidence of disease. Cool and cold water fish like American shad and Atlantic salmon are particularly susceptible to temperature increases and are the subjects of restoration programs due to their significant declines. Entergy’s own data show that the American shad population has declined by over 99% in Vernon Pool since the early 1990’s.  CRWC believes that allowing Entergy to continue to ratchet-up temperatures would be a serious misstep that could further impair the health of the Connecticut River and compromise restoration efforts.

In April of 2006, the Watershed Council took our appeal of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources’ decision to allow warmer discharges to Vermont Environmental Court, an option of last resort for us.  Entergy wanted to increase the river temperature at Vernon an additional 1-degree Fahrenheit by bypassing their cooling tower system between June 16th and October 14th annually.  In August of 2006 the Vermont Environmental Court granted its first stay on the issue pending the appeal, stating, “Appellants have shown sufficient potential for irreparable injury to American shad in the Connecticut River, both at present as the juveniles become accustomed to cooler water temperatures prior to their migration down the River in the fall, and in the summer of 2007 for the growth of the next generation of juveniles.”

Joining us in the appeal were Trout Unlimited and the Citizen’s Awareness Network.  CRWC’s partner and chief counsel throughout the case have been the skilled staff of Vermont Law School’s Environment and Natural Resources Law Center.  This includes senior staff members as well as interns.  In all, VLS has logged thousands of volunteer hours—doing yeoman’s work on behalf of CRWC, its partners, and the river.  Out front as always has been David Deen, CRWC River Steward for Vermont and New Hampshire.

Leading up to the trial, Entergy dipped into their pool of extensive corporate resources calling upon five full-time attorneys and four consultants in an attempt to stymie CRWC’s case.  In the process, they filed three motions to either dismiss the case or narrow its scope.  All were denied. The courtroom aspect of the appeal finally got underway in late-June taking the full eight days scheduled for testimony, which, with breaks, did not conclude until late July. 

In the end, Entergy submitted over 200 objections to our testimony.  These were either rejected or reduced to minor wording changes by the Court.  The case presented by our council was so strong that Entergy petitioned the judge for two additional trial days to question our experts.  Vermont Law School Director Pat Parenteau, Assistant Director David Mears, staff attorney Ben Rajotte, and a host of student interns, put our post trial memo and request for findings before the Court in early October.  They also executed our reply brief, filed October 29th, with the CRWC/VLS team working nights and weekend sessions in order to answer the 900+ contentions in Entergy’s final filing.

Click on the links below for additional information

• Fact Sheet about the court case.
• Permit Information Fact sheet on Vermont Agency of Natural Resources' thermal variance permit granted to Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC.
• Brattleboro Reformer 6-30-07 "Entergy expert grilled by thermal discharge opponents at hearing"
• Brattleboro Reformer 6-29-07 "Of fish and men: Shad, salmon restoration failure explained"
• Rutland Herald 6-27-07 "Entergy: Nuke plant's water not killing fish"
• Brattleboro Reformer 6-27-07 "Yankee discharge hearing is held"
• Rutland Herald 6-21-07 "Court blocks Yankee"
• Rutland Herald 8-29-06 "Vt. Yankee's warm-water releases halted"
• Brattleboro Reformer 8-29-06 "Judge tells VY to cool it"
• Court decision and order on motion for stay of permit amendment pending appeal.
• Press release 8-28-06 on stay halting Vermont Yankee's permit amendment to increase the River's temperature.
• Brattleboro Reformer 6-28-06 "Watershed Council challenges VY permit."
• Press release 6-20-06 announcing our filing of a motion to stay Vermont Yankee's permit to increase its thermal discharge.
• Motion to stay 6-16-06 Vermont Yankee's permit filed with Vermont Environmental Court.
• Press release 4-21-06 announcing our appeal of Vermont Agency of Natural Resource's permit allowing Vermont Yankee to increase the temperature of the Connecticut River during summer months.
• Notice of appeal filed by the Connecticut River Watershed Council, Trout Unlimited (Deerfield/Millers Chapter) and Citizens Awareness Network.

Contact: For additional information on CRWC's appeal of the Vermont Yankee discharge permit amendment, please contact David Deen, River Steward (Upper Valley) at crwc@sover.net or by phone at (802) 869-2792.

The Fifteen-Mile Falls Mitigation and Enhancement Fund has been making grants since 2002 to local community organizations for river restoration, wetland protection and shoreland protection projects throughout the Vermont and New Hampshire reach of the watershed from the White River to the Connecticut Lakes. The Connecticut River Watershed Council was a driving force in the establishment of the fund and continues to provide strategic leadership to identify successful outreach projects that help to mitigate the effects of the Fifteen-Mile Falls hydroelectric project’s three dams.

Creation of the Fifteen-Mile Falls Mitigation and Enhancement Fund: Rated at 296 MWh generating capacity, the Fifteen-Mile Falls (FMF) hydroelectric project is the largest hydroelectric generating complex in New England. The project reservoirs bury 26 miles of free flowing river, including Milligan’s Pitch the largest falls on the river. As a hydro facility its value to the New England electric energy grid is providing power on short notice during peak demand times such as hot August days or frigid February nights.

For all that we need the power from FMF, it still negatively impacts the Connecticut River. CRWC was one of the primary stakeholders involved in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licensing process for FMF, which expired in 2000. Through the relicensing procedure, which began in 1994, CRWC and other stakeholders agreed to allow the company to provide peaking power in exchange for offsets to improve or protect other areas of the river.

Along with changes in the operation of the dams to protect the river and the aquatic life in the Connecticut River, one of the negotiated outcomes was the establishment of the Fifteen-Mile Falls Mitigation and Enhancement Fund. To offset FMF’s negative effects on the River, a portion of income generated by the hydroelectric dams goes into the fund to support river restoration, wetland protection and shoreland protection projects.

To apply for funding from the Fifteen-Mile Falls Mitigation and Enhancement Fund, download the following documents:

MEF Grant Application Coversheet click here [DOC 120KB]

MEF Grant Application Guidelines click here [PDF 75KB]

MEF Proposal Evaluation Criteria click here [PDF 40KB]

MEF Previous Grants click here [PDF 32KB]

"How clean is the river?" is a common question we get. Often times we don't know, because there is no group regularly monitoring the Massachusetts stretch of the river. CRWC is aiming to fill that void, and in 2007, we launched our first year of volunteer water quality monitoring. Thanks to a US EPA Equipment Loan grant, we were able to measure dissolved oxygen, water temperature, specific conductance, and water clarity. Five volunteers and three staff were involved in measuring water quality at six sites, four along the mainstem of the Connecticut River and two in the Fall River. Our sites were split into two "teams" and both teams measured on the same day and at the same time. In 2007, we had a shortened field season, sampling once a month in August, September, and October. In general, all sites met water quality standards for temperature and dissolved oxygen on the days we measured. Due to the drought late this summer and into the fall, the clarity of the river water was consistently very good. Specific conductance at Connecticut River sites were low, but the Fall River sites had high readings. One sampling date in particular showed a spike in specific conductance that might indicate a pollution source upstream.

To learn more about this volunteer project, download the full report (PDF 440KB):
CRWC Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program Annual Report 2007

It's a sad commentary on the state of our national environment that one of life's simple pleasures -- catching a fish and eating it fresh -- may be hazardous to your health. Pollutants from both far away and from local run-off are found in many fish to be caught in the Connecticut River watershed, making them unsafe for eating in quantity. Follow the links below to see what the public health advisories are for each state:

The last time customers were angry about high water bills, area residents dumped boxes of bills into Boston Harbor in a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party.  MWRA wants to avoid this from happening again, and their solution is to sell more Quabbin water to additional communities.  They are pitching it as a win-win-win, saying that suburban communities want the water, stressed rivers in eastern MA would not have as much groundwater withdrawn nearby for drinking water, and the MWRA would not have to raise their rates as much.  The result?  Less water to help dilute pollution in the impaired waters of the Connecticut River, especially in the Holyoke/Springfield region; less water for the famous trout fishery in the Swift River; and more sprawl across the state.  Unnecessary water withdrawals runs counter to the enabling act of  the MWRA, the governor’s stated policy of “smart growth,” and the state’s new Water Policy. 

Click on the links below for additional information

• 6-29-06 Press Release calling on MWRA to take care of donor watersheds first.
• 6-28-06 Listen to the WAMC feature Plan to Sell Reservoir Water Drawing Criticism
• 6-67-06 Letter to MWRA proposing downstream releases.
• 3-22-06 Letter providing comments to MWRA on their proposal to market water to new communties.

Contact: For additional information on CRWC's position on more interbasin water transfers from the Quabbin Reservoir, please contact Andrea Donlon, River Steward (Massachusetts) at adonlon@ctriver.org or by phone at (413) 772-2020 ext 205. 

Would you like to help take take the "vital signs" of your nearest river or stream AND be part of a world-wide event at the same time? You can do that by joining in World Water Monitoring Day. Sponsored by America's Clean Water Foundation, the event takes place every year between September 18th and October 18th. CRWC would like you to help us out by getting involved.

World Water Monitoring Day participants measure four "snapshot" parameters of watershed health: temperature, pH, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. There's an inexpensive kit you can order online to take these measurements in the Connecticut River or one of its tributaries. If you already have access to instruments that measure any of these conditions, you are all set. The website for WWMD is www.worldwatermonitoringday.org.

If you participate in WWMD, send us your results after you submit them to America's Clean Water Foundation. CRWC will tabulate all the data we receive about the Connecticut River watershed and prepare a summary report that we will send you. In future years, CRWC plans to build a strong base of water quality enthusiasts who will help us learn about and monitor the health of the Connecticut River watershed.

For latest migratory fish count: US Fish & Wildlife Service

For current river flow and stage levels:
    U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - CT
    U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - MA
    U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - NH and VT

For flood information: the National Weather Service

For flow conditions below hydropower dams: FlowCast

For tides in the estuary, click here: Tide Charts

Live! Bald eagle nest at Barton's Cove

Dams in the Watershed