Wild Cat Aqueduct is a

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

carrying water for

hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

and public water supply, located in

Granville, Massachusetts Granville is a town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,538 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is named for John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granvill ...

. The aqueduct carries water eastwards from Cobble Mountain Reservoir, located some 20 miles west of Springfield in the towns of

Blandford Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this was abolished and ...

, Granville, and

Russell, Massachusetts Russell is a town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,643 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Russell is in western Hampden County, bordered ...

, to a hydroelectric power station located about 2 miles (3.2 km) downstream on the

Little River Little River may refer to several places: Australia Streams New South Wales *Little River (Dubbo), source in the Dubbo region, a tributary of the Macquarie River * Little River (Oberon), source in the Oberon Shire, a tributary of Coxs River (Haw ...

, just upstream from the Gorge. From there it connects to the Springfield Aqueduct. The power station was built in 1930 by the City of Springfield, and now owned by the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission and operated by a subsidiary of

Northeast Utilities Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to appro ...

. It contains three generators for a total output of 30.6

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

References

Canary Systems

Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation
{{coord, 42, 07, 02, N, 72, 52, 40, W, scale:50000, display=title Aqueducts in Massachusetts Transportation buildings and structures in Hampden County, Massachusetts