Like most dams, the case around the ones in Ellsworth is a complicated one, with a lot of competing interests. Advocates like Downeast Salmon Federation want to make it easier and safer for fish, including alewives and Atlantic Salmon, to pass the dams without getting killed. Brookfield wants to generate and sell electricity. Homeowners who live on the shores of the lakes (which formed as a result of the dams being built more than a century ago) don't want to live on mudflats. And state regulators want to make sure the water has the proper balance of oxygen and nutrients for all of the aquatic life in the lakes and river to thrive.
At the moment, most of those things aren't happening, at least in the way anyone wants. Some fish make it through, but thousands are killed each year, a phenomenon repeatedly documented by Downeast Salmon Federation. Brookfield says it has cut back on energy generation at certain times in order to allow for fish passage and manage drought. Homeowners are dragging kayaks through mud for hundreds of feet to reach the water. And state regulators say the aquatic life in the waters around the dams are showing "undisputed stress."
"This is the big elephant in the room," said Shaw on Wednesday. "It’s right in the middle of the city."
Advocates insist that many of the problems could be solved if Brookfield put in a "gold standard" fish passage and stuck to a drawdown level of 2-3 feet, rather than the 5.7 feet the company requested in its water quality application. Shaw said that ideally, Downeast Salmon Federation would like to see the lower dam removed and the upper one kept in place. Removing the upper dam would be catastrophic for property owners along the shores of Graham Lake, which exists only because the upper dam is in place.
Brookfield, an asset management company based in Canada, owns dozens of hydroelectric projects in Maine, many of which it has acquired in the past decade. (Shaw said on Wednesday the company owns 90% of Maine's hydroelectric generation; The Monitor was unable to confirm that figure before press time). Maine's 51 licensed dams accounted for more than a quarter of the state's electricity generation in 2022.
Brookfield also came under fire at another dam in Maine this week after several environmental groups accused it of possibly violating the Endangered Species Act at the Milford Dam on the Penobscot River. Advocates say a fishway installed in 2014 isn't working, and that neither the company nor the state have taken steps to fix the problem, according to reporting by Maine Public.
Brookfield is also in the midst of a fight over four dams on the Kennebec River, which advocates would like to see dismantled to allow for fish passage.
"What many of us are working on," said Shaw on Wednesday night, "is trying to reconnect our rivers to the sea."
|