Please use the letter below as a guide for writing to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office. Modify the content and formatting to suit your needs. Remember to cc all suggested people linked at the bottom of this letter.
Subject: Please review FirstLight’s hydro relicensing application under MEPA
To: Commissioner Tori Kim
I recognize that in 2012, MEPA responded favorably to a request from FirstLight Power for an Advisory Opinion that MEPA would not apply to their relicensing application for Turners Falls dam and Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage facility. Since many things have changed since 2012, including the possibility that the new application meets MEPA’s current review thresholds, I hope that MEPA may still be reviewing MEPA applicability. I strongly hope the MEPA office becomes involved. FirstLight’s relicensing application is for facilities built 50 years ago. Note that
- they are requesting that this license be valid for another 50 years;
- over the past 50 years there have been extreme and negative effects of these operations on the river’s embankments and its animal and plant inhabitants;
- the climate crisis will cause many changes over the next 50 years, and while many cannot be known, fluctuating water availability and temperature changes should be anticipated;
- neither MEPA nor even the 401 process existed 50 years ago, so these reviews have never been completed for these facilities.
Therefore, I believe it is imperative that MA EEA, DEP, and the MEPA office invite as much input as possible into the issuance of the Water Quality Certificate. In the Clean Water Act, the federal government gave us this one measure of leverage in dealing with FERC’s licensing power. We must use it judiciously.
Thanking you for your time, I am
Sincerely yours,
[Your name]
[Your address]
[Your email address]
[Your phone number (optional)]
cc: Public Officials names and addresses