How dam removals became new front in eco war, Ellsworth's 2 dams devastated area fisheries
ELLSWORTH - This week, the largest owner of dams in Maine sued the state in the battle for the future of four dams in the Lower Kennebec River. The same company also is embroiled in a dispute in the Union River Watershed which has profound down stream impact on the bays and estuaries west of MDI.
In June the state board with the authority to overturn decisions by the Department of Environmental Protection upheld the DEP’s denial of a water quality certification which threatens the federal license renewal of the Leonard Lake dam here owned by Brookfield Renewable Partners, parent of Black Bear Hydro Partners which operate the dam. The company quickly appealed the ruling, a process that is ongoing. Dams have a 40-year permit, and one here has expired.
In addition to water quality issues, environmental groups want the company “to play by the rules” and engage effective waterways to allow fish to swim upstream to spawn in the spring and then return to salt water safely and not get chopped up by turbines in the dam.
Why should we care on the Quietside about a dam in Ellsworth?
Because the Union River is a huge enabler of fisheries in Blue Hill Bay, Union River Bay and Mount Desert Narrows - virtually all the water west of the Quietside which eventually dumps out to the Gulf of Maine.
When the dam was constructed in 1907 it provided no passageway for migrating anadromous fish, species such as salmon, sturgeon, shad and alewives which spend most of their lives in salt water but seek fresh water in the spring to spawn.
Suddenly the returning fish were trapped by a 69-foot dam. Not being able to spawn upstream resulted in dramatically fewer baby alewives, and with less of the foundational anadromous fish available as prey, cod, haddock, hake and pollack fled the region to waters where they were eventually over-fished. But what if the process could be reversed? What if the impediments to spawning bait fish could be removed, like an ecological unfriendly dam?
This is the simplistic version of the work of Ted Ames, the legendary fisherman/scholar who received a $500,000 MacCarthur Foundation genius grant in 2005 for his study, “The Stock Structure of Atlantic Cod in the Gulf of Maine,” relying on oral accounts of Maine fishermen to show where cod had historically spawned.
“Ames believes that the ecological protection of areas where fish reproduce could help stop the cyclical crashes of cod, haddock, and other commercial fish species,” according to Maine Magazine’s interview in 2015.
“Ecologically oriented area management could even repopulate the Gulf of Maine with enough fish to rebuild its former abundance, when fishermen throughout New England were catching 50- to 60-pound cod.”
Brookfield is a gigantic Canadian-based company which has more than $625 billion in assets under management. The two dams in Ellsworth are an annoying fly in its chowdah. Its corporate lawyers have plenty of legal templates for all possibilities.
This week it filed a pro forma lawsuit against the state to extend the time it needs to decide on its four dams on the Kennebec, where Maine scored one of the most loudest and important environmental victories in the nation’s history when in 1999, the first functioning hydroelectric dam (Edwards) was removed — and the first time the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ever voted, against the wishes of a dam owner, not to relicense a dam.
Since then 40 dams have been removed in Maine.
But the problem on the Kennebec is not over. While two dams, including the Edwards, were removed, four dams down river remain intact and continue to obstruct efforts for fish recovery.
On Sept. 9, four environmental groups sued Brookfield Renewal saying the dams are “killing endangered Atlantic salmon and other sea-run fish critical to the state’s commercial fishing industry and the health of the Gulf of Maine.”
But Brookfield fired back this week and said in its lawsuit against the state that Maine agencies have overstepped their authority by attaching fish passage requirements to its water quality certification.
Maine had at least 831 dams in 2005, according to the Association of Dam Safety Officials. That did not include dams that were never registered with the state, such as log drive structures that are long forgotten but continue to act as barriers to fish passage. “Most of these dams do not serve their original purposes and relatively few (179) are used to generate hydroelectric power,” wrote biology conservationist Slade Moore in 2012.
Nonetheless there is significant evidence that even with the removal of just the two two dams on the Kennebec, spawning fish have returned in large quantities.
Since the removal of the Edwards Dam in 1999 and Fort Halifax Dam in 2008, “Counts of river herring (Alewife and Blueback Herring), American Shad and Striped Bass at upstream dams confirmed that these species quickly recolonized the 27-km, free-flowing segment of the Kennebec River that became accessible after Edwards Dam was removed,” wrote Gail Whippelhauser of the Department of Marine Resources.
“Average counts of river herring increased by 228% after the removal of Edwards Dam and by 1,425% after the removal of Fort Halifax Dam. However, access to a substantial amount of habitat in the Kennebec River is blocked by ineffective passage at the lowermost dam.”
Rivers in Maine in the 20th century were so polluted by raw sewage and the detritus of the lumber industry that dams became a target of the Clean Water Act, the signature achievement of Maine senator Edmund Muskie. The CWA will mark its 50th anniversary of passage next October.
The Union River which has been plugged up by a dam since 1907, when it was fashionable for industry, especially in Maine, to harness the power of rivers for extraction and distribution of lumber and then for the generation of electricity in the early 20th century.
In 1922, just north of the first dam, an earthen dam was added, resulting in Graham Lake, the 14th largest lake in Maine, giving the power-generating Leonard Lake dam below more water in reserve, like a big battery.
In December 2020, a vice president of Brookfield wrote a letter to the editor of the Ellsworth American which many read as a veiled threat to the hundreds of waterfront residents on Graham Lake.
“If a water quality certification is not issued, Black Bear Hydro Partners would be forced to consider decommissioning both Ellsworth dam and Graham dam,” wrote Brookfield VP Tom Uncher. “It is unclear what this would mean for the future of Graham Lake as dam decommissioning plans vary by project,” raising the specter of a bone-dry lake.
The residents wasted no time. A week later they wrote, “If, as Brookfeld suggests in their commentary, that by following Maine water quality and fisheries laws they will be forced to decommission their hydroelectric project then we are more than capable of working with our community to build a future with a healthy, stable Graham Lake and productive Union River and bay full of fish and clean water without them.”
The letter was signed by Barb Witham, secretary of the Union Salmon Association, and residents Diane and Brady Perry.
And then, another week later, Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation, and its staff biologist Brett Ciccotelli, wrote:
“A dam’s operations must comply with state water quality standards. It’s that simple.
“In October, our staff and volunteers again collected many dead alewives and eels killed by the operation of the Ellsworth Dam, as we have done every year since we began monitoring in 2014.
“This dam lacks safe upstream fish passage, and the turbines kill and maim fish moving downstream. When Brookfield bought these dams it knew the Union River was home to endangered Atlantic salmon, yet Brookfield has continued to propose passage conditions that are so limited, the fisheries agencies that operate an Atlantic salmon hatchery on the Union River actually refuse to stock salmon in this river — the salmon from the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery are sent “away,” to more hospitable waters. We think this needs to change.”
See the following videos taken of the fish kills By Downeast Salmon Federation.
Brookfield Renewal calls itself a socially responsible ESG (environment, social, governance), but environmentalists long ago discounted the benefits of hydro power as countered by their destruction of fisheries and the carbon emitted by the dead fish. The Ellsworth dam generates 8.5 megawatts of power at its best, said Ciccoletti, compared with more than 20 MW from all the solar arrays in town.
MDI has at least two fishways to enable anadromous fish spawning - one in Somesville and one in Seal Cove, which needs to be upgraded. QSJ participates in the annual alewives count in Somesville. In a good year, the count may approach 50,000.
The scale of theUnion River is much different. It has the potential to return millions of fish.
Who pays the bills in Tremont? Not businesses
TREMONT - Some beliefs become mythical and take on a life of their own, like the statement, “Our schools and community need new businesses and tax dollars to help bring us locals better community facilities.”
That was uttered by Becky Hopkins last summer in her campaign on behalf of her son and daughter-in-law to erect the town’s biggest development - 55 luxury yurts in West Tremont.
Except the statement is false and self-serving and not even close to being true. It’s akin to the shibboleth among some that you know nothing about Tremont unless your family has been here for multiple generations.
Businesses make up less than 4 percent of the tax base in town and couldn’t support any of the town’s services, facilities or roads on their own.
Who can do that? The town’s homeowners, especially the rich summer people who pay $20,000 or more a year and then leave town without straining roads, schools, police and fire protection and trash services for most of the year.
One single summer “cottage” at the end of Dix Point Road paid more in taxes last year than Bass Harbor Campground, Quietside Campground and Hansen’s Outpost combined.
And which of the above do you think generated more traffic, more trash and cost the town more in services?
How much taxes would the proposed Acadia Wilderness Campground generate for Tremont? And how much of the town services would it gobble up?
Using the Terramor luxury glamping resort on Rt. 102 in Bar Harbor as a comparison - because that’s what AWC told residents is similar to its proposal - the taxes would be paltry. Last year Terramor paid only $12,000 in property taxes to Bar Harbor for a bigger campsite - 64 units on 60 acres.
AWC is proposing 55 units on 43 acres, although it is trying to limit the footprint to less than 20 acres to avoid having to apply for a Department of Environmental Protection “site location permit” required of all developments larger than 20 acres.
The town would be much better off financially if that acreage were to house a single-family subdivision like Kelleytown Road.
The group calling itself Concerned Tremont Residents is more than just a NIMBY clone. It is a group of citizens activated by the horror of what might happen to their community given the sloppy stewardship of a few. CTR is amassing data and research to inform a new townwide conversation about its future instead of leaving it to the usual suspects, town boards stacked with self-interested business people.
The group has a simple message: We like the rural residential nature of this town. It is the last bastion of an authentic Maine rural experience on MDI, and we don’t want to trade it for a cheap Bar Harbor, honky tonk sensibility.
It was able to collect 177 signatures when it only needed 84 to put the question of a campground moratorium on the November ballot. Its members are retired executives, business owners, teachers, nurses, scholars, lobstermen, craftsmen. In other words, it has no obvious connecting tissue other than a shared sense of community.
One of them is William Shepherd, who on Tuesday night was given a special commendation by the Town of Southwest Harbor for helping to save the life of Molly Rawle of Gouldsboro who fell overboard from her sloop in Seal Cove Sept. 1.
Shepherd, a Southwest Harbor volunteer fireman, was able to get to the Seal Cove launch in about five minutes. He and others commandeered a skiff and were able to get to Rawle before hypothermia took full grip.
Shepherd, who works in Southwest Harbor, likes the rural nature of his home on the backside. He signed the petition because he wanted it to stay that way.
Eleven years ago, the town’s comprehensive plan committee apparently heard the same concerns and actually crafted a future land-use map which changed the area for the proposed campground from Residential/Business to Rural Residential. See the white area on the map below. The amber colored area is Residential/Business.
But the CPC has no teeth. Its recommendations are only that. It’s up the the elected select board to place those changes to be voted by the voters of Tremont.
Also, some owners are loath to give up the commercial part of commercial/residential thinking that “commercial “ makes their holdings more valuable. That’s another myth.
The Residential/Business Zone is Tremont’s largest. The moratorium will allow the town to take a deep breath and ask whether residents in that zone will tolerate a gas station, campground or a dead fish compost next door to their homes.
DEP investigates foul odor from fish compost
TREMONT - Several QSJ reader wrote to complain about the smell of the fish compost as a result of the recent die-off of farmed salmon at Black Island.
“I live on Rte 102A and tried to trace where the toxic odor was coming from, then heard about the salmon farm die-off and that it had all been taken care of. But the stench lingered, not in the harbor itself but all along the road from the P.O. to the lighthouse,” wrote one reader.
“The worst part shifted from day to day. We figured that it must have had something to do with the Gott’s trucks that were taking the ‘compost’ around their various properties.”
David Madore, deputy commissioner of Environmental Protection, confirmed the DEP received one complaint about the smell “which staff investigated.”
“They did identify the source and have been working with the business owner to address the issue. Staff was onsite again yesterday, and they are confident that the problem has been addressed,” he wrote in an email Friday.
Gott’s Disposal is a licensed compost for dead fish and handled the die-off of 116,000 salmon at Cooke Aquaculture the week of Aug. 16.
“Aside from the cruelty of asphyxiating living creatures en masse, one might also question how they were disposed of and where,” a QSJ reader wrote.
Affordable Housing Crisis on MDI hits home for SWH chief
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Police Chief John D. Hall has become another marker of MDI’s affordable housing crisis.
He has not been able to find permanent housing since he started working here July 12 and has been living in a camper in Lamoine.
Meanwhile his family is still in Winthrop.
Hall said the cost of housing in the MDI area, including off island, is higher than that in the Winthrop area “by far.” And he’s not just talking about MDI. The cost of housing in Lamoine, Ellsworth and Trenton is also astronomical by his calculation.
Hall is following up on contacts suggested by members of town boards and government but he has not found anything. The police chief is paid $76,000, which is the average household income in Maine.
So where is the moral outrage?
There seems to be a collective acceptance that the tourist industry can hack into our communities and gobble up whatever housing stock is available to cater to its army of seasonal employees and to the marauding visitors and that the coterie of wealthy summer people can lay waste to any semblance of a mixed class of year-round residents - the police officers, the nurses, the teachers, the food service workers, most municipal workers. The people who take care of us cannot be our neighbors. And their children will not grow up with ours. This is a pox on all our houses.
QSJ would like to hear ideas on how we fight out of this and to create a more economically diverse island we all call home. I have some ideas, but I’d like to hear yours.
Video of LUKE GROSS funeral
Lincoln’s Log
SOMESVILLE - As expected September had the highest number of positive tests for Covid-19 on the island since the pandemic began, with 30 cases reported at MDI Hospital as of Sept. 29. That eclipsed the previous high of 23 in August. One of the cases was of a child under 12.