Calls to remove an Ellsworth dam are mounting after the state signaled it would deny a water quality permit for the second time, renewing questions about the future of the Union River dams.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has issued a draft denial to Black Bear Hydro Partners — a subsidiary of Brookfield Renewable that owns the Union River dam and the upstream Graham Lake dam — for its second water quality certification application, required for its federal relicensing effort.
Black Bear Hydro was denied its last water quality certification in 2020, though the dams continue to operate on a temporary license.
While a water quality certification is needed to relicense both dams, local environmental group Downeast Salmon Federation has specifically proposed removing the lower Union River dam in central Ellsworth.
Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation, said Brookfield “remains entirely disingenuous” and is “playing the clock to dodge its responsibilities to produce a serious license application” that would end the “horrific fish kills and mudflows that they create.”
The federation has advocated for the removal of the Union River dam, which impounds Leonard Lake, though they believe the Graham Lake dam should be preserved, provided Graham Lake levels are stabilized and a fishway is installed, according to Shaw.
Shaw said the most plausible solution would be to form a quasi-governmental watershed district, like those recently organized to inherit ownership of dams at Toddy Pond and Alamoosook Lake.
Proponents of its removal cite the 119-year-old Union River dam’s impact on local fish passage, while residents who live on Leonard Lake, which is impounded by the dam, say removing it would devastate their property values and quality of life.
“Dam should be removed,” one Facebook commenter said. “[It] never should have been there to begin with. It kills so many fish.”
Another Facebook comment raised concerns about what any dam removal could mean for the city’s finances.
“The percentage of the total property taxes that are collected annually from waterfront owners would not be believable by most taxpayers,” one Facebook user said. “Those same taxpayers will be the ones to make up for the loss of waterfront owners tax dollars…..or the city will need to have massive budget cuts!”
The prospect of decommissioning the upstream dam — which the salmon group says it’s not suggesting — has also unsettled residents who live on Graham lake.
One Graham Lake resident contacted Ellsworth city councilors about fears that removal of the upper dam could cause flooding.
“Your concern about flood risk is legitimate and shared by many residents. However, it’s worth noting that Shore Road has flooded with the Graham Lake dam in operation,” Councilor Tabatha White wrote in her response to the resident. “Most notably in 2018, when a failed sensor allowed water to rise above its licensed maximum, causing flooding despite the dam being present. The dam does moderate flow, but it does not eliminate flood risk, as residents have experienced firsthand.”
The state issued its second draft denial of Brookfield’s bid to get a water qualify certification for the dam last week, on May 4. The state will accept comments from the public on the draft denial until 5 p.m. on May 25. The department must issue their final judgment on the water quality application by June 17.
If Black Bear receives a denial, they could appeal that decision — as they did the last time — or resubmit a third water quality application, unless the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the entity that oversees the dam’s licensing, intervenes.
“Black Bear Hydro Partners is still reviewing the draft decision and its implications and will determine its next steps in due course,” a Brookfield spokesperson said in a written statement to the Bangor Daily News.
The state’s draft order cited three reasons for their denial: the stretch of the Union River between the two dams at Graham and Leonard Lakes do not meet water quality standards for aquatic life, the project fails to provide safe passage for four species of fish — Atlantic Salmon, American shad, blueback herring and alewives — and the water at Leonard Lake does not satisfy dissolved oxygen standards.
The department’s denial underlined that Black Bear Hydro’s current application was minimally different from their previous 2019 application, which the company appealed to Maine’s highest court after the state issued its first water quality certification denial in 2020. The Maine Supreme Court later dismissed the appeal.
“In the current application, Black Bear Hydro proposes a modified drawdown at Graham Lake, reduced from 5.7 feet to 2.9 feet, but without the benefit of any new studies or sampling that might support the effects of such a drawdown on the other unchanged aspects of the application that was previously denied,” the state’s draft order says.
The draft denial says Black Bear “impermissibly attempts to place the burden of demonstrating that Class B aquatic life standards will be met on the Department.”
The state’s second denial is expected to be a major topic of discussion at the annual Union River Summit — organized by local environmental group Green Ellsworth and centered around the past, present and future of the Union River watershed — that is being held this weekend. The event, which is primarily being held at the Moore Community Center in Ellsworth, begins Friday.
