📜⚖️👩‍⚖️ American Whitewater and Friends File Appeal of State Water Quality Certifications to Protect Recreation and Clean Water Below Hydropower Dams (VT/NH). American Whitewater has been working for the past 13 years on the relicensing of five dams on the Connecticut River in MA/NH/VT. While we reached a settlement agreement at the Turners Falls and Northfield Mountain projects in Massachusetts, the owner of the WIlder, Bellows Falls, and Vernon Dams along the VT/NH border failed to propose any meaningful recreation measures in their license application. Despite this lack of planning for recreational boating opportunities, VT and NH have certified that these dams meet state water quality standards for recreation, including protections for whitewater boating on the Connecticut River. In particular, the Bellows Falls dam dewaters a section of the river, provides no public access, and fails to remove an obsolete low-head dam that eliminates whitewater boating opportunities there. American Whitewater and our non-profit partners are appealing Vermont and New Hampshire's state water quality certifications in court. American Whitewater will continue to advocate for strong state authority to protect rivers under the Clean Water Act, while at the same time, as in this instance, hold states accountable when they fail to do so. 📷 Vernon Dam photo by Al Braden (fb)

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