SOUTH WINDHAM — As recently noted on the Press Herald editorial pages (“Maine Voices: Time to remove the Kessler, Dane Perkins and Twine Mills dams,” July 17), many are seeking to mitigate the impact of dams on our rivers.

The Friends of the Presumpscot River are, and have been for nearly 15 years, seeking to restore the native fishery on that waterway through a combination of river protections, awareness, fish passage and dam removals.

With all but one of the dams owned and operated by Sappi Fine Paper, it has been a challenging legal and scientific effort. However, if successful, this restoration will be something we can all look to with pride.

The Friends of the Presumpscot participated in the same Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process that is now occurring on other rivers. It is complex and intense.

This was done simultaneously for five consecutive dams on the Presumpscot River: Saccarappa, Malison, Little Falls, Gambo and Dundee.

The Friends of the Presumpscot advocated as lead interveners, seeking a combination dam removal and fish ladder installation that would have opened up habitat for salmon, shad and alewives and still retained over 70 percent of the hydro production on the river.

FERC denied removals and demanded instead that fish passages be installed on all of them. This was challenged by Sappi at every judicial level up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court, where Sappi challenged a Clean Water Act provision pertaining to states’ rights to license hydropower facilities. With our legal counsel, Ron Kreisman, and then-Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe arguing, we prevailed in a unanimous decision.

These FERC orders, however, could be enacted only if a fish passage were installed at the Cumberland Mills Dam, just beneath Sappi’s Westbrook Mill, which was not under FERC jurisdiction. This was a hard-fought, never-before-used process that was finally ordered by the state in 2009. It was operational in 2013.

Sappi owns the next dam, at Saccarappa, where the fish passage installation was ordered by FERC. The number of fish that are able to pass at Saccarappa will determine the requirement for Sappi to install passage at the next upriver dams.

This will not be cheap, but Sappi has gained considerably from the hydroelectric production along this river. The company has done so without any consideration of or investment in the restoration of the fishery until forced to by the Friends of the Presumpscot and its allies.

Saccarappa is a complex site, unlike many places where a dam removed will mean the return of the natural river. At Saccarappa, the river has been extensively blasted and altered.

Historical images are often different. And where images do not tell the whole story, historical documents do. They describe a river flush with sea-run fish well beyond Westbrook from Casco Bay to Sebago and even Bridgton.

The Friends of the Presumpscot believes that what is best for the entire river, and all its communities, is to achieve the best possible fish passage at Saccarappa and have its operations and maintenance fiscally secured in perpetuity. This is the responsibility of the private entities that have harnessed and profited from this river for so long.

This is the time for public voices to be raised. A public hearing has been called by Sappi for at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Westbrook High School, Room 114. A representative of Sappi will present two potential designs. Each has issues and raises questions. One, a western channel design by Acheron Engineering, is favored by Sappi; the other, a two-channel design by Princeton Hydro, is favored by the Friends of the Presumpscot.

It is a complicated site. There are multiple potential routes and much reconstructive work to be done. It is hard to predict what the fish will do.

With the best habitat all above Saccarappa, we are now at a point where the future of the Presumpscot is at stake.

Will it be a river again choked by human desire and motivations for profit, or will fish move freely through its waters, over falls and through the rips and riffles to spawn and return again?

Will it be a place where humans can fish amid rolling waters and watch bald eagles and osprey?

As the largest freshwater input to Casco Bay, may it once again support our ocean fishery with an abundance of critical feedstock? Will communities embrace healthy waters as a profound part of their identity and future appeal?

The Presumpscot River runs through the most densely populated part of the Maine. Future generations will understand and love all our rivers through touching its waters.

 

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