Karl Meyer’s recent letter concerning the dire plight of the shortnose sturgeon at the Rock Dam reminded me once again how the language we use to talk about the Connecticut River has become enshrined in Orwellian doublethink where words are manipulated to mean their opposite while maintaining the illusion they actually mean what they say. This linguistic misdirection lulls the public into thinking this river and its aquatic inhabitants have ample environmental safeguards and protections, providing effective camouflage for FirstLight Power’s operations at the Turners Falls dam and the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage facility that shields our eyes from the unrelenting environmental damage being inflicted upon this river ecosystem by FirstLight on a daily basis.

How else to explain that an ancient fish species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act whose only Connecticut River spawning grounds occur at the Rock Dam within the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, “established in 1997 to conserve, protect and enhance the abundance and diversity of native plant, fish and wildlife species and the ecosystems on which they depend throughout the 7.2 million acre Connecticut River watershed,” could be receiving no protection at all?

The shortnose sturgeon does not find refuge in the Connecticut River, it finds itself a refugee on its way to extinction. Those responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act are not actually protecting this fish, but are doing precisely the opposite: endangering it by continuing to allow its spawning grounds to dry up in service to a corporate entity whose only motive is profit, that touts itself as a source of efficient, clean renewable energy while using primarily dirty fossil fuels, uses more energy than it produces, and leaves environmental devastation in its wake. An impressive application of doublethink that would have dazzled even Orwell himself.

Susan Olmsted

Greenfield

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