BATH

The Winnegance sawmills once represented the greatest concentration of tidal mills in the world, and now Maine is home to the nation’s first commercial-scale tidal energy project.

So Bath is an ideal spot for a conference on tide mills, organizers say.

The Tide Mill Institute — a collection of historians, preservationists and renewable energy advocates — will hold its eighth annual conference, titled “Harnessing the Tides: Eight Centuries of Tidal Power,” Nov. 9-10, at the Winter Street Center on Washington Street.

“We’re interested in being a facilitator for spreading the word, and exploring the reuse of old tide mill sites,” said Bud Warren of Topsham, one of the organizaton’s founders. “We want to open people’s eyes.”

Certainly, it opened people’s eyes when the nation’s first commercial tidal energy project was dedicated this past July in Eastport.

After Ocean Renewable Power Co. of Portland installed a network of 20 turbines on the ocean floor, the company’s Cobscook Bay Tidal Energy Project is now producing enough electricity to power some 1,200 homes.

Bangor Hydro Electric Co. announced that Ocean Renewable Power had begun delivering electricity to its power grid Sept. 13.

Those turbines are the only ocean energy project, other than a dam, delivering power to the grid anywhere in North, Central or South America, according to Ocean Renewable Power Co.

The project is funded by a $10 million investment from the Energy Department, as well as the Maine Technology Institute and private investors.

Why a turbine, rather than a dam?

“You put this in the water,” Warren said, “and it goes around and around, and makes electricity. Fish sense the activity, and swim around it. It is a fish-friendly turbine. And you don’t need a dam.”

But it’s early in this game, and efficiency is an issue.

The initial price of 21.5 cents per kilowatt hour for tidal power is almost double the current average price of 11.21 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity in the state, according to an article in the Boston Globe.

“There’s the challenge,” Warren said. “Engineeringwise, you can do it. The challenge for these people is to narrow the cost.”

Warren points with enthusiasm to another tidal energy project — this one a dam — in the works in Kennebunkport. There, a group is in the process of redesigning a 1749 tide mill to grind grain.

“My guess is that, within a year, they will get their permit,” he said. “It’s going to happen down there.”

“The old ones worked, and they cut a ton of lumber and ground a lot of grain,” Warren said.

Warren, a retired history and English teacher, has had his mind on tidal energy for some time. On boat tours with his Hyde School students, he became fascinated with the old Winnegance and Crosby Mill sites.

He; Earl Taylor of Dorchester, Mass.; and John Goff, who grew up near Winnegance, formed the Tide Mill Institute eight years ago.

For a dozen years, Warren has traveled from Kittery to Lubec, documenting old tide mill sites. He has documented more than 200, including one built in 1634, in York.

The Tide Mill Institute Conference will consist of field trips to old tide mill sites at Winnegance and Arrowsic, plus presentations, displays, discussion and more.

Simon Davis, an archaeologist from the Museum of London, will deliver the keynote address. Davis will speak of an Anglo-Saxon tide mill that he helped discover.

Goff will deliver a presentation on Winnegance.

John Morse, a sixth-generation sawyer, will speak of his family’s tide mill.

A pre-conference field trip to the Bath area’s tide mill sites is set for noon to 3:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9. The conference itself at the Winter Street Center begins with an informal reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

Registration and coffee are at 8 a.m. on Saturday. Following the presentations, another field trip to the Winnegance and Arrowsic sites begins at 2:15 p.m.

Those interested are encouraged to register early. The cost is $20, and refreshments and lunch are included.

To register, contact Warren at 373-1209 or [email protected], or Taylor at 617-293- 3052 or [email protected].

lgrard@timesrecord.com

¦ THE WINNEGANCE MILLS Winnegance Creek, nearly three miles in length with a basin at its extremity, forms two unsurpassed tide-powers. There have been 16 mills, nine on the Bath side and seven on the Phippsburg side. The coves and tide range are ideal, and the site is near the mouth of the Kennebec River, where millions of logs floated downriver every spring and summer for processing into lumber, and loading onto schooners to send the boards to markets around the world. Many of the older houses in the Winnegance and Bath area bear the marks of the kind of up-and-down tide-powered saws that operated there.

SOURCE: PRETI FLAHERTY

¦ THE CROSBY MILL The Crosby Mill in Arrowsic, a tidal sawmill, operated in the early 1900s. It was located on Mill Island, off the Old Stage Road, between the mill pond and the Back River. When the mill pond was higher than the river, the sawyer could opened a small gate into the box of the waterwheel. As the water poured from the mill pond through the box into the Back River, it turned the 6-foot-to-8-foot wheel and shaft, powering the machinery. Because the saw took so much power to run, it could only be used effectively when the mill pond was at least 4 feet higher than the Back River. On an average 8- foot tide, the mill could run four-to-five hours. It closed in the late 1930s.

SOURCE: PRETI FLAHERTY