Maine Compass: Salmon losses pile up across four Brookfield dams

In his piece, “Save each Atlantic salmon and the Shawmut Dam” (June 27), state Sen. Mark R. Lawrence seems to depend on good religion and speaking factors from the dam’s proprietor, Brookfield Renewable Energy of Toronto, Ontario. Sen. Lawrence, from York County, will not be as conversant in Central Maine’s Kennebec River useful resource as these of us who stay and work alongside its banks and have witnessed the constructive modifications within the river under the Lockwood Dam in Waterville for the reason that 1999 removing of the Edwards Dam in Augusta.

Likewise, he might not know that with the 2008 removing of the Fort Halifax Dam in Winslow, the city of Benton acquired rights to the biggest run of alewife on the East Coast. That industrial harvest pays the wage and advantages of two of its elementary faculty employees. The industrial harvest can also be exported to Canada the place it’s processed and shipped to Haiti the place the protein is desperately wanted.

I need to reply to Sen. Lawrence with the flowing factors:

1) The talk is not only in regards to the Shawmut Dam; it’s in regards to the cumulative affect of 4 Brookfield dams that grownup salmon should discover their approach round to get to their spawning habitat within the higher Sandy River after which again to sea, the place they’ll replenish their sapped power to return to spawn once more the following yr, as they develop bigger and carrying extra eggs to construct the Kennebec’s Atlantic salmon inhabitants.

2) The difficulty is in regards to the child Atlantic salmon that develop to adolescence within the Sandy River for 2 years earlier than following their mother and father downstream, previous the generators and 30-foot-high spillway drops onto concrete and rock aprons at 4 dams.

3) It isn’t in regards to the lack of an estimated three fish yearly if a 95% efficient fish ladder is employed at Shawmut, in comparison with an impractical-to-build, 99%-effective fish ladder. It’s in regards to the cumulative lack of 5% of the spawning grownup Atlantic salmon at every of the 4 dams.

With 95% effectivity, of 100 fish who try to go the Lockwood Dam in Waterville, solely 95 fish get to Hydro-Kennebec, 90 get to Shawmut, 86 get to Weston Dam in Skowhegan, and maybe 81 discover their option to the Sandy River. That’s a 19% loss in upstream grownup fish passage, earlier than you add the losses attributable to 25 miles of heat impoundments, and the extra losses from downstream passage on out-migrating grownup salmon and juvenile salmon.

The Federal Power Regulatory Fee, which licenses and units working circumstances in any respect 4 of the decrease Kennebec dams between, has dedicated to assessing the mixed environmental affect of all 4 dams on the river as a system in its licensing selections about every of these dams. This closing FERC Environmental Affect Assertion is not going to be printed earlier than 2023.

4) To recommend that anybody involved about restoring the inhabitants of Atlantic salmon would sacrifice 700 union jobs to avoid wasting an estimated three fish at Shawmut is ludicrous. Nobody would advocate for such a tradeoff. Gov. Janet Mills has pledged that this is not going to occur, and advocates for dam removing have pledged to hunt methods to maintain the mill working with out extra value to Sappi Corp.

5) The 4 dams mixed generate merely 47 megawatts of non-fossil gas vitality. Over the previous 18 months I’ve acquired solicitations from at the least seven group photo voltaic farm builders who, when their tasks are absolutely operational and related to the Maine’s energy grid, will greater than change the ability generated by these 4 decrease Kennebec River dams. These group photo voltaic farms will produce energy with no affect on fish and wildlife or the scenic vistas of the North Woods.

Sen. Lawrence would do nicely to verify his sources and be taught extra about our Kennebec River earlier than providing up an uninformed opinion.

Dave Hedrick is retired and lives in Waterville, the place he enjoys fishing the Kennebec River and is director of the Kennebec Chapter of Trout Limitless.