Orland voters adopted a moratorium Thursday that will temporarily prevent the owner of two local dams — one on Alamoosook Lake and another on Toddy Pond — from disposing of the properties.
The temporary measure is similar to another adopted by Bucksport last month, which aims to ensure that a third dam on Silver Lake is not abandoned, removed, transferred to a new owner, or opened up to release all the water held behind it.
All three of the dams are owned by subsidiaries of AIM Demolition USA, which bought the former Verso Paper mill in Bucksport in 2015 before dismantling the facility. The dams had been owned by Verso and were included in the sale.
This summer, the company notified state officials that it planned to give up ownership of the dams, prompting concerns among officials and residents in the five towns that have frontage on the lakes created by the dams.
If the dams are not maintained and operated as they have been, it could cause economic harm to waterfront property owners and entities that depend on the lakes, local officials have said.
Lowered water levels could reduce access to the lakes and the assessed value of shorefront properties, and in turn reduce the overall tax revenue coming into the towns, local officials have said. If the dams are not properly maintained, it could result in a dangerous failure, they have said.
Also, Silver Lake provides the drinking water for Bucksport and several other towns, and a power company operating at the former paper mill site has rights to it. On Alamoosook Lake, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a fish hatchery.
Gina Bushong, a member of Orland’s Select Board, said the town had a special meeting Thursday night to inform local residents about the situation and to call for a moratorium that prevents AIM from releasing ownership of the dams or the water they retain.
“We wanted to get the community up to speed,” said Bushong, who has been the town’s primary liaison to a committee formed by the five towns to oversee the situation. “We’re much stronger if we work as a coalition. Communication is huge.”
About 100 people attended the meeting and overwhelmingly voted in favor of the moratorium, Bushong said.
“AIM can’t transfer them to anyone for any reason right now,” she said.
With the vote, the town has 180 days to craft and adopt an ordinance that governs what AIM can do with them. Bushong said the ordinance will give AIM three options for what it can do.
The first would be giving the dams and money to manage them to the towns. The second would be transferring ownership to another entity with experience in dam management and the financial resources for doing so. The third would be removing the dams in accordance with state and federal law.
AIM also must get permission from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to do anything with the dams, but those regulations focus mostly on the environmental impact of how they are maintained and operated. The measures that the town intends to put in place deal mostly with their economic impact and safety concerns, Bushong said.
AIM’s petition to the state to rid itself of owning the dams has been dismissed because it failed to provide additional information that the state asked for after it was filed in July. But with the moratoriums, town officials want to be ready in case the company submits another petition to either sell or walk away from the dams.
AIM officials have not responded to multiple requests for comment about the company’s desire to get rid of the dams.
