A Win for the Penobscot River

Good environmental news broke today in Veazie, Maine. A final Penobscot River Restoration Agreement was signed by Maine Governor John Baldacci, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, Chief Barry Dana of the Penobscot Nation, a coalition of state and national conservation groups, and PPL Corporation. The ceremony took place at the Veazie Salmon Club Park, located just 1/10 mile from the offices of Deep Blade Journal.


Baldacci speaks at ceremony with Norton and other dignitaries looking on. The Veazie dam is seen in the background.

The agreement will lead within ten years to the removal of dams in Veazie and at Great Works. These structures now cripple the ability of Atlantic salmon to reach natural spawning areas. There also will be a major reconfiguration of a third dam so that both water impoundment and fish passage will be possible above Howland, Maine. The plan is now filed officially with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The tragedy that befell the fish after the construction in 1834 of a dam at Eddington bend, and later a hydroelectric structure known as the Veazie Dam, is heartbreaking. Maine's first Fisheries Commissioners described the impact of this dam in 1869:

The latter [Veazie Dam] was closed in the winter. When the fish came in the spring they found an impassable barrier across their way; they gathered in multitudes below the dam and strove in vain to surmount it; many returned down the river, and after the usual time for spawning of shad was past they were taken in weirs in the town of Bucksport, loaded with ripe spawn they could no longer contain; a phenomenon which Mr. John C. Homer who has fished with weirs at that point for forty-three years had never observed at any other time. These were doubtless shad whose natural spawning grounds lay far up the river, and who had after long contention given up the attempt to pass the Veazie Dam. A great many shad and alewives lingered about the dam and died there, until the air was loaded with the stench.

This agreement represents a major reversal in public policy trajectory concerning the Penobscot River. Less than ten years ago, the hot topic around here was a gigantic proposal for new dam construction at Basin Mills, just upriver in Orono. And going back to 1985, large corporate interests were hot to install a massive dam at Big Ambejackmockamus Falls on the West Branch. Following defeat of those projects on environmental grounds, a consensus began to build that restoration the Penobscot fishery was a project far more worthy, both economically and environmentally, than megaconstruction of destructive dams. People are sick and tired of repeated fights over these monster proposals.

It is interesting that Secretary Norton took a break from her usual busy day of advocacy for mining and oil drilling interests, owners of motorized trail vehicles, removal of protection for endangered species, and other like-minded pursuits. The press release for today's event from the Department of the Interior may be read here.

It appears that President Bush, after using Maine as his Earth Day backdrop, intends to use this state as a showcase for his environmental concern. No one should be fooled. Though Interior has not been a roadblock in the Penobscot project, this must be considered a rare exception for the Bush administration. It is only through decades of hard work by dedicated people of all political stripes that official Washington in an anti-green administration has been forced to be on board.

For additional background, please see this November 2003 story in Northern Sky News, and the Penobscot Partners website.


Gale Norton, John Baldacci, and Barry Dana chum around at the Penobscot River Restoration signing ceremony in Veazie today.