The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Secret Deal No Good for the Presumpscot

November 28, 2007 - Since the Ice Age, Atlantic salmon have swum from Casco Bay up the Presumpscot River to Sebago Lake each summer. These salmon were so numerous that a war was fought along the Presumpscot from 1736 to 1740 by the local Indians against dam owners who blocked the salmons' path.

In 1786, no less than Samuel Adams, a leader of the Revolution, said as Massachusetts governor that the Presumpscot Indians were correct. Gov. Adams and the Massachusetts Legislature ruled that Atlantic salmon had a legal right to swim to their native home in Sebago, and Presumpscot River residents had a legal right to not have their backyard river blocked by dams.

Today, the state of Maine has decided that Samuel Adams was wrong; that Atlantic salmon should never be allowed to return to their native home in Sebago Lake and the upper Presumpscot River.

How did the state reach such a historic and momentous decision? In secret. Specifically, in secret negotiations this spring with Sappi Ltd., which owns six of the seven dams that block the Atlantic salmon's migration route from the Presumpscot River to Sebago Lake.

Members of Friends of Sebago Lake, a volunteer organization, were distressed this summer to learn about this deal via a July 11 account in the Portland Press Herald. This article described a settlement agreement reached between the state of Maine and Sappi for the company to remove the non-hydro Cumberland Mills dam in Westbrook in 2011. This dam would be removed by Sappi in exchange for a massive "give back" by the state on legal fish passage requirements at Sappi's five hydro dams on the Presumpscot.

This settlement agreement -- which will seal the fate of the Presumpscot River and Sebago Lake for the next 50 years -- was completed without any public notification, public meetings or public hearings. This agreement will legally prohibit any meaningful restoration of fish passage on the Presumpscot River and prevent native Atlantic salmon from swimming from the Atlantic Ocean to Sebago Lake as they have done for eons.

Under the agreement, federal licenses for Sappi's dams will be extended from 30 years to an unprecedented 50 years. In comparison, licenses for wastewater discharges are up for review every five years.

The agreement delays provision of working fishways at Sappis tiny dams for 30 years or more. Instead of guaranteeing and mandating working fishways at Sappi's dams by a certain date, the state's secret agreement contains no deadlines at all. Under the agreement, it is quite possible that fishways will never be built at Sappi's Mallison Falls, Little Falls, Gambo Falls and Dundee dams during the next 50 years.

Under this secret agreement, teenage students in Westbrook, Windham, Gorham and Standish will be 65 years old before they will have a single chance to influence the management of the Presumpscot River. This agreement will prevent the next two generations of Maine citizens from having any say in what is done to their own backyard river, the Presumpscot, for most of their natural lives. This is wrong.

The state does not want the public to have a say in this matter. This is why no public hearings or informational meetings have ever been held on this matter, nor does the state plan to hold any.

Friends of Sebago Lake asks the state to schedule immediate public hearings in Westbrook, Windham, Gorham and Standish to allow the owners of the Presumpscot and Sebago Lake to be informed and to have their questions answered.

SOURCE: Portland Press Herald

DATE: 11-22-2007


Lakes: Sebago Lake
Regions: Sebago


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News