Dam removal irrelevant to Sebasticook fish work
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WINSLOW — Despite the unresolved status of Fort Halifax Dam, the state's sea-run fish restoration initiative on the Sebasticook River is on schedule and headed for a new stage next year, a Maine Department of Marine Resources scientist said.
Gail Wippelhauser said fish passage at four non-hydroelectric dams upstream from Fort Halifax has been achieved.
Wippelhauser said that accomplishment, not the removal or preservation of Fort Halifax Dam, is what triggers fish passage requirements at Benton Falls and Burnham, two hydroelectric dams located between Fort Halifax and the four upstream dams.
Based on a 1998 agreement, Fort Halifax Dam needed only to provide upstream fish passage by a permanent or temporary mechanism to set the stage for Benton Falls and Burnham to meet their passage obligations.
Wippelhauser said dam owner FPL Energy has used a temporary mechanism in the form of a fish pump to pass alewives for several years.
Therefore the controversy over whether FPL Energy will be able to carry out its plan to remove its 95-year-old hydroelectric facility is irrelevant to the fish restoration timetable.
"According to the settlement accord, it has no impact," Wippelhauser said, "because all of the requirements for passage at Benton Falls and Burnham have been met."
Those requirements concern outlet dams at Stetson Pond in Stetson, Plymouth Pond in Plymouth and Sebasticook Lake in Newport.
In three cases, Wippelhauser said forms of fish ladders were built to satisfy passage. The former Guilford dam on Sebasticook Lake, meanwhile, was removed.
Wippelhauser said a work crew completed a fish ladder for Sebasticook Lake's remaining outlet dam June 13.
That means both Benton Falls and Burnham have until June 13, 2004, to have their fish passage systems installed, she said.
Wippelhauser said Benton Falls Dam's owner already has submitted three conceptual designs, one that the state has rejected, for various agencies to evaluate.
"Typically what happens is they send conceptual designs around because that is fairly inexpensive to do," she said. "There is no sense developing cost estimates at first if one of the agencies says no go."
Under the fish restoration plan, the goal is to provide a habitat for 4.5 million alewives and 133,00 American shad.
So far incremental goals have been achieved for alewife, but American shad have not returned in significant number and some claim that no Atlantic salmon have been spotted.
Colin Hickey — 861-9205
chickey@centralmaine.com