As expected, an application has been filed with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to reconstruct a dam at Scribner's Mill, on the Crooked River between Harrison and Otisfield. I, and many other anglers and organizations, are against re-damming the river, which is a primary spawning river for the wild landlocked salmon of Sebago Lake. Scribner's Mill ceased to be a mill in the 1960s; the old milldam was partially removed in 1972 and a fishway was installed. Not even 150 years of frustration could alter the instincts of the salmon, many of which immediately raced upriver again to reach their habitual spawning beds.

We're especially vexed by the proposal because if built it would serve a frivolous purpose: to provide "historical authenticity" to a minor tourist attraction, the restored mill itself. Don't the landlocked salmon of Sebago have their own "historical authenticity," and doesn't that authenticity date back to the end of the last Ice Age, preceding the mill's history by a few millennia?

As we wrote in this space some months back, the proposal to rebuild the dam will certainly include a fish ladder or some other fish passage option, but any of the options would “intercept a significant proportion of the adult spawning salmon population,” according to Francis Brautigam of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Brautigam, who finds the idea of rebuilding the dam “very disconcerting,” pointed out that “dam impacts can not be fully mitigated” by fish ladders or other passageways. Note the unqualified “can not.” No way. For this reason the MDIFW strenuously opposes the dam.

The Sebago salmon fishery, which has had its ups and downs through the past couple of centuries, is thriving again, thanks in large measure to the freer passage of spawning salmon up the Crooked. Now comes before us a proposal to do serious damage to that legendary, world-class fishery just so a reconstructed millwheel can be turned by water power to amuse a handful of tourists.

Scribner’s Mill and other water-powered sawmills may be quaint and well worth preserving as historical artifacts, but we don’t need to dam rivers to turn millwheels anymore. The Maine DEP official in charge of the application process is Dana Murch. Call him at (207) 287-7784 to obtain a copy of the Scribner's Mill application, and weigh in on the issue as an individual or a group during the public comment phase. Help stop this misbegotten proposal in its tracks.