The Connecticut River is New England's longest river (410 miles), and covers about 11,000 acres across four states. There are 38 major tributaries that additionally feed it, 68% of which drain 100 square miles of terrain or more. There are over 20,000 miles of streams in the watershed. Within its watershed region, defined as the terrain drainage basin of which the Connecticut is the base, there are nearly 400 communities, and roughly 2.3 million people.

A Working River

Chelsea Gwyther is the Executive Director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, a non-profit advocate dedicated to protecting the Connecticut River basin. The Connecticut River is the largest river originally settled by colonists to the new world, and its usefulness for citizens and industry alike became apparent almost immediately. "The Connecticut River really is a working river," she says. "It's tied to how we've come to this area...we've used it through the ages. Because we have this great river, industry has wanted to locate next to it for power."

Many mills had set up shop, diverting some of the river's flow into small pools to generate power for their turbines. The Dam of the Holyoke Water Power Company, was the greatest of these projects, a full 1/5th of a mile across the length of the river itself. It was first attempted (in failure) in 1847, rebuilt by 1849, and then reinforced in 1870, pretty much to the state it is in today. Even at the time, it was a constant source of 30,000 horsepower. A 'success' like this caught the eye of the nation coming out of the Great Depression (when President Roosevelt was all about building monumental projects everywhere for anything, and employing the nation to do it). "In the 1930s Roosevelt commissioned a study of the Connecticut River, and later President Truman spent money to update the report. The concept was to investigate damming up the river for federal energy production." Gwyther says, "Those along the river started getting up at arms, worried about losing local control, worried about becoming another Tennessee Valley Authority." The birth of the Connecticut River Watershed Council had local business, community, and environmental issues in mind...perhaps not all members having the same priority for each. Nevertheless, the Watershed Council remains an advocate for the health of the river (that can't speak for itself) in matters related to it in business, development, environmental, and other spheres.

Why Does It Matter?

"The Connecticut River was better known as 'America's Best Landscaped Sewer'," Gwyther says. For decades was unsafe to swim in, much less drink (and in some areas still isn't). The river today is impacted by sewage, pollution, and development. Chelsea Gwyther explains that we use the river for sewage disposal, and in high run-off or flooding events, municipalities actually pump raw sewage directly into the river. "Often times after a flood event when the water is still up, it's still not safe to swim in the river, or some of the tributaries, because of raw sewage coming downstream."

"Textiles have been a major user and polluter over the years. One industry by themselves is one thing, but when you take the cumulative throughout the entire river length, you can end up with a polluted river." Pollution can take a number of forms in a river, and not all of them are immediately harmful to humans. Industry can elevate the temperature of the water through their discharge, they can change the pH of the water, and obviously disperse chemicals through the water, among others.

Dead-Beat Dams

"Dams impact our rivers, creating abnormal flow situations," Chelsea Gwyther explains. "The flow is determined by the amount of snowmelt and rainfall entering into a river system, the run-off situation in regards to nearby development, and in the way we hold back and release water (with dams)." Dams wouldn't have ever been considered for any use across a river if their intended purpose wasn't achieved, however, with each dam there are also unfortunate consequences. "Dams can put down long-lasting impacts...sediment backs up behind them, fish habitat is altered, it heats up the water."

Paul Marinelli concurs, "When you introduce a dam to a river, you change the hydrology completely. We've been working with the Fish and Wildlife Agency and other Agencies have been coming together (including the CT River Watershed Council) as well so we can see what areas there are for compromise, where we can still be effective." Unfortunately, a very small percentage of dams existing in the Connecticut River watershed utilize this kind of partnership, and/or are there for flood control and public safety. As Gwyther explains, "There are literally thousands of dams in the Connecticut River Valley, and that becomes a bigger deal...A lot of them are what we call 'Dead-Beat Dams', where a dam used to be functional for some industry, but that industry has since crumbled or move away, and the dam remains. There are many of these such dams, and all of them are a dangerous situation waiting to happen. No one is charged with their care, and any failure of one of these dams could send a wall of water downstream that would not only threaten lives, but could stress more dams in disrepair, and the chain reaction can be catastrophic.

But, as both Marinelli and Gwyther agree, dams can't simply be just taken down. Each one is holding back a pool of water that the downstream life and industry has adapted to, and failing one to remove it has way too many consequences for the folks below it (and obviously the dams downriver as well). There are no simple processes for removing a dam. Sometimes you wait until an actual failure, where you can more simply remove it and not rebuild (but then the full effect of such a dam failure is still permitted to be meted out)...and in other times you can breach it gradually, ensuring each step of the way all other dams are stable and downstream communities remain in a non-flood situation. Here's a link to a current dam removal project in Merrimac, NH, "one of the largest and most complex dam removal projects ever attempted".

"(Many) dams do serve a purpose," Paul Marinelli declares, "ours are authorized by congress to remain in place. 60 years ago the philosophy was simple. You have a river...you have people living along the river...you have floods that inundate, "build a dam". It's not that simple today. You just don't build a dam today unless there's multiple purposes. Environmental purposes weren't an element back then (when constructing flood control dams)...'just build it...protect these people'...That was the whole mission. Now...we also think, 'at what cost are we protecting those properties?' To build a dam, design a dam, and actually make it feasible today, you have to address different aspects of the watershed that you perhaps didn't have to decades ago."

"In the next 10 years," Gwyther says, "several of our dams are coming up for re-licensing. Hydro-power dams have to go through that process every 30-50 years. The process allows (groups and individuals with concerns like those of the Watershed Council) the opportunity to review those permits to take into account our community (and ecological) needs. Energy production may have been the only thing we could do with a dam at the outset, but now that has to be balanced with ecological concerns. A lot has changed about the health of our river, and of course new knowledge has come about as to what dams do ecologically. To the extent that it is possible, we need to make sure (dam projects) operate in a way that is not harmful.

Development

"Having the development right along the river, decreases the ability for the river to handle flooding naturally." Gwyther recounts, "The state of Massachusetts is developing at a rate of 40 acres per day." When environmental factors are not taken into account, run-off from rainfall ends up being channeled directly into rivers, rather than being allowed to seep into the ground and soil first, naturally mitigating the influx. "Our natural processes have some great resources to deal with flood situations...Upland forests, wetlands, natural buffers (between development and the rivers) increase our abilities to handle normal flooding." From an ecological point of view, 'normal' flooding is actually a good thing for an area, and a statistical reality of the world we live in. It creates and/or extends wildlife habitats, it moves sediment along the riverbed, and can create more biodiversity.

Indeed, actual flood mitigation techniques like the ones employed by the Army Corps of Engineers have sometimes had the unfortunate effect of making citizens feel more confident in developing their property beyond where they should-- and expecting it to stay dry. Paul Marinelli has seen this scene play out before: "If we don't have a major flood over a couple of years...people that are living along the river-- the next thing you know they're developing their property closer to the banks...and then when we do have a flood event and we have to discharge at our legally allowed maximums (to prevent a more devastating torrent), they start screaming 'Hey what are you doing!' 'My shed is under water!' 'My swimming pool!' So we try to get to maximum outflow at least once per year to remind people to be careful...that this is why the dam is here...and to make sure it's still effective."

"If we're truly going to be able to withstand floods," Gwyther says, "we need to be building in and accepting natural safety nets for ourselves." Gwyther continues, "Building right up to the rivers' edge is not a good strategy (for limiting loss against flooding). This doesn't meant that we can't build in the floodplain, or that we can't pave new areas-- only that we need to think more carefully about the trade-offs."

Related Links:
http://www.ctriver.org/ - Connecticut River Watershed Council
http://www.reservoircontrol.com/ - Army Corps of Engineer Projects for CT River
http://www.crvfcc.org/ - Connecticut River Valley Flood Control Commission
http://lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/damremoval/ - Dam Removal Information