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Sunday, August 11, 2002
Popular river struggles with balancing act
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||
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The Four-Part Series: Saco River: Source to Sea | |||||
Glena Waterhouse couldn't imagine her life without the Saco River. She lives on it, plays on it and even has a Web site dedicated to it. "The Saco River is the reservoir for a lot of towns around here and people need it to drink," she said. "But they also need it to feed their souls. They need both those pieces from the river." Waterhouse, who has a camp in Biddeford, is but one of many who depend on the Saco River. As it winds its way from New Hampshire to the Atlantic Ocean, the 134-mile river is a source of water, power and recreation for hundreds of thousands of people. As one of the cleanest, least-developed and best-protected rivers in Maine, the Saco for the past few decades has had no trouble meeting these needs. But increasingly, those elements that make the Saco River so special are in danger as pressure mounts to overuse the river. Conflicting recreational demands - from paddlers to the north to boaters and fishermen in the south - pose the greatest immediate problem. Then there are the essential needs the river provides - electricity and water. Finding how to balance all of these while maintaining the river's natural state, its fish habitat and forested banks, is becoming an ever-growing challenge on the Saco River. "The Saco's problem is people want to love it to death," said Dana Murch, who supervises dams for the state Department of Environmental Protection. "It's struggling because it's so clean. It runs the risk of becoming so popular that you will destroy those very values that make it special." In July, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram sent a reporter and a photographer to see firsthand the pressures on the river. The two-person team visited the river's origin, the pristine Saco Lake in New Hampshire's White Mountains. They paddled almost every passable portion of the river in Maine, from Swans Falls in Fryeburg to the river's mouth at Camp Ellis in Saco, in all about 85 miles. Along the way the newspaper interviewed dozens of people who use the river, protect it, love it, worry about it - and abuse it. What the newspaper discovered was a river that has survived man's encroachment on nature in a remarkable way; a river that still acts rural, wooded and wild, despite a string of dams in its midsection and its proximity to major roads and growing towns. "(The river) really accommodates a lot of use to a lot of different user groups, which makes it kind of special," said Francis Brautigam, a fish biologist with Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. "Given its location in the state, it's still very attractive." River has rich history The 1,696 square miles that make up the Saco River basin - the river and its surrounding watershed - is a rich ecological habitat, home to humans for centuries. American Indians of the Abenaki nation used the river for transportation. Some historians say the river is named after one of the Indian tribes that lived on its shores - the Sokokis. Europeans began exploring the Saco River at the mouth, now known as Camp Ellis, in the early 1600s and the first European village along the river, now the city of Saco, was settled in 1636. The river begins at Crawford Notch's Saco Lake, where it spills over into a small brook that quickly becomes raging and rocky. The river drops 1,515 feet on its nearly 45-mile journey through New Hampshire. Just outside of North Conway, N.H., the river becomes wide and gentle, moving around 3 to 5 miles an hour in high summer over soft, golden sand. The river maintains this form for approximately 40 miles, from the Maine border in Fryeburg until it reaches the first of six hydropower stations in Hiram. For the next 23 miles after the Hiram Dam, the Saco is temperamental -sometimes gentle, where the course is wide and straight, sometimes wild, when it tumbles over rocky rapids. At the Bonny Eagle hydropower station, it mellows out, becoming lazy and and lakelike. It maintains this form for 20 miles as it leapfrogs across four more power generators. At the foot of the last set of dams in Biddeford and Saco, the river becomes tidal and its banks give way to saltwater estuaries until it finally reaches the sea. Starts in New Hampshire The recreational demands on the river begin at Saco Lake, where fly fishermen like Larry Cosmo of Hopkinton, Mass., come at sunset to fish. The lake is stocked with trout, and Cosmo often brings his children, Crista, 5, and Tommy, 7. In August, the family goes to Old Orchard Beach. When they reach the Saco River bridge on the Maine Turnpike, Cosmo tries to impress his children with the fact that this is what becomes of his favorite fishing hole in New Hampshire. It doesn't really matter to the children, who are more amazed by the colorful fish their father pulls from the water. However, it impresses Ed Stinchcomb, of Bartlett, N.H., who also loves to fish Saco Lake. "It just keeps going all the way to Saco," he said on a warm summer day, looking southward. "You can follow it all the way to Maine." But first it has to get through New Hampshire. For the most part, until it reaches North Conway, the shallow Saco River noisily bounces along jagged rocks, making it impossible to canoe. Kayakers will often run this section in the spring when melting snow creates higher, rapid, deeper water. Otherwise, this section of the Saco River is accessible only by foot to fly fishermen and swimmers. The real playground pressure on the Saco begins at Swans Falls in Fryeburg, where 3,000 to 7,000 canoeists per summer weekend launch their boats for a leisurely float down the river. This is one of the most consistent, easy-to-paddle sections of the river. The banks are lined with level sand bars, perfect for camping, although they are private property. Because about half of the canoeists rent from local canoe liveries, they have brought a flourish of economic health to the area. But they have also brought to the river a lot of beer and trash and rowdy parties. According to Stefan Jackson of the Nature Conservancy's Saco River Project, recreation isn't the real threat to the Saco. "It's irresponsible recreation - such as cruising down the Saco with three canoes, one filled with booze, and partying hard and doing things you wouldn't do . . . otherwise," he said. "Irresponsible recreation is incompatible recreation." Keeping an eye on trouble This summer, the most popular section of the Saco River in Maine also became the most closely watched. Fryeburg police are spending extra hours on the weekends motoring a boat up and down this section of the Saco, keeping an eye out for trouble, making sure the people floating along know that the police are nearby. "The people on this river are going to be a little more conscious of what's going to happen to them," said Jocelyn Judge, who works for the Saco River Recreational Council, a group that promotes safe canoeing on the Saco River. "We're hoping they're going to not get out of hand like they used to." The police patrols stop at the Brownfield bridge, where most of the canoeists pull out of the river and call it a weekend. A few canoeing groups continue on to Hiram, but the water starts to slow down, which requires a lot more paddling effort. The 44-mile trip from the first dam in Hiram to the last one in Biddeford loses its allure to the canoeist crowd. Here, the Saco becomes more of a productive river, generating power for more than 61,000 homes in Cumberland and York counties. But people still find ways to play on the river. There are private family camps up and down the banks. Rope swings hang from the towering pines and sturdy oaks. Kayakers run the rapids between Hiram and the Bonny Eagle Dam in Buxton. Fishermen in their motorboats enjoy the deeper, accessible sections above the dams, while swimming spots of all shapes and sizes provide summer entertainment for kids. Below the last dam, when the ocean becomes tidal, the boat traffic picks up again. Instead of canoes, the vessels are equipped with motors and the operators are looking for striped bass. It is one of the busiest tidal river fishing spots on the southern Maine coast, said Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's Brautigam, because it is one of the only rivers in York County with public boating access. "For its size, it is one the busiest rivers I've been on," he said. For the most part, all these recreational demands coexist. But some of the people who have lived around the Saco River for years, such as Michael Morris of Waterboro, are starting to notice the toll they take on the Saco. Most noticeable is the trash that piles up on sandbars and in the river itself. "People are so disrespectful of this river," Morris said. "If you want to keep coming to these places, they should be kept clean. Why can't people just pack it in and pack it out? I just don't understand it." Robert Yarumian, who lives between the Bonny Eagle and West Buxton dams, believes the Saco has been well protected over the years by the Saco River Corridor Commission. The commission was formed by the Legislature in 1973 to regulate development along the Saco River's banks. "But there's nothing going on to control recreation," said Yarumian. "And it is, in my opinion, out of control." Yarumian makes a point few would disagree with: The Saco is such a desirable place to play because it has been so well protected. While other rivers in Maine struggle with industrial pollution, pressure for dam removal and over development, the Saco flows free of these concerns. State's second-cleanest river Environmentalists say it is one of the cleanest rivers in Maine, second only to the St. John River. Considering the Saco's location - it snakes through Maine's three most populated counties, Oxford, Cumberland and York - that is quite an accomplishment. Murch, the state's dam supervisor, said the Saco River from Fryeburg to the tidal section in Saco/Biddeford tests out at the highest levels possible, with different sections getting an AA or A grade. By comparison, he said, there is not a place on the Androscoggin River in northern Maine that rates higher than a B. "(The Saco) river has been clean for years and we're lucky that we've been able to keep it that way," Murch said.The river is so clean that it serves as a drinking source. In Biddeford, just before it passes under Maine Turnpike, the Saco loses up to 10 million gallons per day to the Biddeford Saco Water Co. After treating the water, the company during its peak summer season sends it out to more than 100,000 people in Biddeford, Saco, Old Orchard Beach, Pine Point, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Ogunquit and Wells. While there are people who would argue that the Saco isn't clean enough, there is a consensus that the reason it is so much better than other rivers in Maine similar in size is because there are no wastewater treatment plants upriver and there has been little industrial development along the waterway over the years. That's not to say the Saco has been completely free of industry. For nearly 200 years a rich lumber industry dotted the river's banks with sawmills. In the 19th and 20th centuries, textile and fiber mills in Biddeford and Buxton harnessed the river for power and dumped waste in it. The federal Clean Water Act in the early 1970s ended the industries' dependance on the river. Today, industry asks little from the river. FPL Energy, which bought the hydropower stations from Central Maine Power in 1999, makes electricity from the river. Maine Energy Recovery Co. in Biddeford uses the water as a cooling agent in its trash-incineration process. The Saco also provides water for a number of agricultural fields along its banks. For the most part, though, the Saco's main job is to serve as a 134-mile-long playground and those who have championed the river for years are paying attention to this pressure. For now, they are just watching, waiting to see what happens, and Waterhouse is among them. She makes a mental note every time she sees somebody in a jet ski fly by her camp below the Skelton Dam, creating an illegal wake. She keeps count of the outboard motors that leak gas into the water. She is aware of every new dock and ladder built along the river bank. "I worry about the ecological balance," she said. "I wonder, is recreation going to destroy the natural habitat of this river and pollute it?" Staff Writer Giselle Goodman can be contacted at 324-4888 or at: ggoodman@pressherald.com
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