Karl Meyer

‘It’s a good name, “Gulf of Mexico.” Aztec derived. I bet even the fish like it.’

GREENFIELD, MASS.-Dear Mr. President,

With all due respect, it's the "Gulf of Mexico."

As the saying goes: you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Recalling President Clinton's one-time campaign mantra "It's the economy, stupid!" and recognizing you as our once-again single-term president, "It's the 'Gulf of Mexico,' silly!" That's ground truth, derived from the endemic language of the place.

The lingua franca, the language of the people, knows no borders, sir. I live in the Connecticut River Valley. When I step across the border from here in Massachusetts into Vermont or New Hampshire, we accept and understand our shared commonality of place.

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Will Mass. decide the fate of New England’s Great River?

A settlement among some Massachusetts stakeholders denies agency to Vermont and New Hampshire and sidesteps the question of whether the fish-killing, energy consuming Northfield Mountain actually deserves a 50-year federal license renewal

Karl Meyer has been a stakeholder, intervenor, and member of the Fish and Aquatics Studies Team in the relicensing bids for FirstLight's Northfield Mountain and Turners Falls operations since 2012. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, and he has not signed a non-disclosure agreement at...

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Crushing your right to a living river

FirstLight Power has the support of Massachusetts state agencies in its bid for a new 50-year federal license to run Northfield Mountain — a facility that consumes more energy than it produces and destroys millions of fish before they can get to Vermont and New Hampshire

Karl Meyer has been a stakeholder, intervenor, and Fish and Aquatics Studies team member in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing proceeding for the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Project since 2012. Meyer is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is accepting...

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Failed salmon program doesn't deserve new life

Wendi Weber, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) Northeast Region in Hadley, Mass., and Bill Archambault, deputy assistant regional director of fisheries, want a boatload of pork for the failed salmon program of the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission (CRASC). Now! Through an act of Congress, Weber and Archambault are seeking $10 to $14 million in emergency funding to rebuild the White River National Fish Hatchery (WRNFH) in Bethel, wiped out by Tropical Storm Irene in...

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2010 was a bad year for the Connecticut River

The year 2010 echoed the worst of times for New England's Great River, the Connecticut.  Last Jan. 7, radioactive tritium was found leaking at Entergy's aging Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, right to the river's edge.  The plume continues. As of Dec.15, still-rising tritium levels at wells next to the river registered 495,000 picocuries per liter--25-times the EPA safe drinking water standard.  Yet on Nov. 18, Entergy halted their groundwater extraction that slowed the radionuclide flow to the river. May 3,

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