I enjoyed Paul Franz’s photo of anglers at the Rock Dam in Turners Falls in the Recorder’s May 25 edition. I visit there often, particularly in spring as it is a place that has been a gathering site for fishing for thousands of years. Looking upstream in Paul’s photo it appears this is a site full of life and river flow, a well-watered place that should be nourishing to both migrating and spawning fish, as well as today’s anglers. Sadly, that’s not the case at Rock Dam.

Looking downstream from those wading gents you would see hundreds of feet of exposed cobble and dry shoreline, the daily spring norm once FirstLight diverts the river’s flow into the adjacent power canal. In 2004, Dr. Boyd Kynard and Micah Kieffer of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Conte Lab published findings from over 15 years of research at the Rock Dam and handed them over to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Their studies showed Rock Dam’s natural pool is critical spawning habitat for the federally endangered Connecticut River shortnose sturgeon. Indeed, to date, it is the sole, documented natural spawning site on the Connecticut River — their default spawning takes place nearby at the sole choice left to those sturgeon — in the stop-and-go flows charging out of Cabot Station’s turbines, ¼-mile downstream.

As unique, critical habitat, as well as a place of age-old cultural significance, Rock Dam remains largely debased today. It’s robbed of natural flow and deprived of water needed for sturgeon eggs to shelter and develop. I include a photo of the Rock Dam’s desiccated, dewatered nursery habitat from May 18. New Canadian-owners of FirstLight arrived in 2016, but they’ve shown no respect for ancient habitat, culture or the river here. In the 19 years since receiving those findings, National Marine Fisheries has done nothing.

Karl Meyer

Greenfield

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