Twenty years ago, heavy rains from a early October storm swept away an earthen dam in Newcastle, destroying Sherman Lake and creating the conditions for Sherman Marsh to thrive.
Rainfall during the “Columbus Day Storm” on Oct. 9 and 10, 2005, flooded, damaged or closed more than 150 roads across Lincoln County, inundated a pump station on Birch Point Road in Wiscasset and caused debris to block a culvert on West Alna Road, flooding several acres. Newcastle-based National Weather Service observer Arlene Cole reported more than 7 inches of rain that weekend.
The heavy rainfall raised the level of Sherman Lake until the water breached a levee built on the top of the old roadway in 1934. People went to bed Sunday night owning lakeside property and woke up Monday morning without a lake.
According to Richard Newkirk, of the Maine Department of Transportation Environmental Office, the washout “left a hole big enough for a truck to drive through.”
Melissa Temple, of Woolwich, was working as a dispatcher in the Lincoln County Communications Center when she first heard about the lost lake.
Her brother, Michael Elwell, was on his way in to work as a reserve deputy with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office when he noticed the missing lake and called the communications center. Temple had traveled the same route on her way to work a little earlier.
“I had just gotten to work that morning but I guess it was too dark to see anything,” Temple said. “He said ‘What happened to Sherman Lake?’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’” I started thinking about the security of the road. Did it wash out anything underneath? I said ‘This is not going to be good’ so I paged everyone.”
In the days immediately following the storm, Maine Department of Transportation engineers and workers imported stones, rip rap and earth to backfill the area around the piles supporting the Route 1 bridge by the rest area, according to reports in the Lincoln County News archives.
DOT engineers quickly determined the Route 1 bridge was not in imminent danger and state and county officials assured the public the bridge was safe to drive over.
In the weeks that followed the October storm, Newcastle residents debated the pros and cons of rebuilding the dam at a series of public hearings, meetings and in letters to the editor.
After extensive study and analysis, then-DOT Commissioner David Cole announced the state would not rebuild the dam that would restore the lake. Instead, the department would work with public and private agencies to restore the area as a tidal salt marsh.
Cole said environmental and budgetary considerations weighed heavily in the decision, noting the dam had ceased to serve its transportation purpose since the existing Route 1 highway and bridge were built above the dam structure in the 1960s.
In his announcement, Cole acknowledged the strong attachments to the lake by area residents, but made a pitch for the new landscape.
“A healthy salt marsh, while not a replacement for Sherman Lake, brings many positive benefits to the site,” he said.
Asked if the DOT’s announcement would be the final word on the subject, then-Newcastle Board of Selectmen Chair Lee Straw said concerned citizens would have to get involved to “push the issue” further.
“I don’t think that the selectmen are going to go for that and I really think if it went to a town vote, that people would say to leave it as it is,” Straw said. “Originally, I heard from so many people who were in favor of restoring the lake, and now that’s kind of shifted, and now I’m hearing that people want to just leave it as it is. They’re saying, ‘We don’t want to spend tax dollars.’”
In June 2008, researchers from the University of Southern Maine Aquatic Systems Group reported that the loss of the lake had resulted in significant changes in vegetation and physical and hydrologic conditions.
Karen Wilson, who holds a doctorate in limnology (the study of inland waters) and zoology, commented on a dramatic shift she observed between the time of her first visit to the site two years earlier, when she saw acres of mud, and the following September, when she saw evidence of “phenomenal revegetation.”
Grasses blanketed the channel edge and exposure to sun and air encouraged the mostly freshwater plants to grow, Wilson said.
“They were there waiting under the water,” Wilson said.
This article incorporates the work of former Lincoln County News reporters Greg Foster, Kim Fletcher, Judi Finn and Lucy Martin.
