Federal regulators issued guidance last month suggesting that four lower Kennebec River dams can continue operating if their owner makes slight modifications to allow endangered fish to pass through them.
The stipulations outlined by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff in a Feb. 28 report are far more lenient than what was proposed in requests from Maine environmental agencies, Wabanaki nations and environmental advocates, who were hoping for significant passway expansions or the dams’ outright removal.
The report, called an environmental impact statement, is meant to help energy commission’s five politically appointed commissioners issue a final decision on owner Brookfield Renewables’ applications to renew one dam’s license and amend those of three others. If approved, then the final hurdle for Brookfield to operate the dams for decades to come is a water quality certification from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
Wabanaki officials and a coalition of Maine environmental nonprofits staunchly criticized the report’s findings after its release, claiming the fish passage modifications recommended by the federal agency’s staff are flawed, citing similarly modified New England dams that have been ineffective.
Without augmented fish passage standards, these groups worry the dams will result in the collapse of endangered Atlantic salmon and sturgeon populations. Ideally, they would like to see the dams removed altogether.
“Failure to remove mainstem dams on the lower Kennebec River will undermine salmon recovery efforts of Wabanaki in the Penobscot and Wolastoq-St. John Rivers and jeopardize the future of our sustenance fishing heritage,” Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians Chief Clarissa Sabattis said in a joint statement.
Under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s recommendations, Brookfield would be required to scale back operations of all four dams during fish migration seasons and install new fishways at the Lockwood Project near Winslow and the Shawmut Project north of Fairfield.
The company would also have to study how effective the dams’ new fish protections are and report back to state and federal agencies, a continuation of Brookfield’s “many years of study and consultation with federal and state resource agencies, as well as the public … to carefully balance public, economic, energy, and natural resource interests” during the relicensing process, a Brookfield spokesperson said in a statement.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s suggested plan is far leaner than proposals from the Maine Department of Marine Resources to bolster the dams’ technical fish protections, set higher standards for fish passage and require Brookfield to implement detailed plans if the protections prove ineffective.
The Department of Marine Resources’ suggestions were dismissed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for being too ineffective, burdensome, or unrealistic.
One recommendation was that Brookfield add a nature-like fishway along the shore of the Shawmut Project, allowing fish to skirt the dam through a manmade stream, and upgrade a grated structure that prevents juvenile fish from getting chewed up in the turbines to standards set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The commission’s staff declined both proposals, claiming that the new nature-like fishway could divert fish away from the more effective technical lift and, like the narrower grates, would not be worth the additional cost.
The commission did not share the Department of Marine Resources’ concerns that fisheries would be harmed if there weren’t defined procedures and a schedule for designing and constructing additional fishways if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s proposed changes fail to meet passage standards.
“It takes time to design new fishways and to understand the reasons why the existing fishways might be ineffective,” according to a commission statement.
Environmental advocates see this as one of the major weaknesses in the commission’s findings, suggesting the dams could conflict with protections for Atlantic salmon under the Endangered Species Act if detailed contingency plans aren’t put in place.
“The Plan B is really ambiguous,” said John Burrows, executive director of U.S. operations for the Atlantic Salmon Federation. “There’s no, ‘Okay, we build this, we test it, it fails. What’s next?’ And I think that’s a major flaw here. For Atlantic salmon, we don’t have decades, and we really need to see significant, meaningful change now.”
An official with the state marine department also criticized the energy commission’s proposed measures, calling them ineffective.
“The Department does not believe that the measures … will result in meaningful restoration of sea-run fish into the Kennebec River above the four dams,” said Sean Ledwin, director of the Department of Marine Resources’ Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat.
In a statement, federal officials said they addressed all comments on a previous iteration of the report in this latest draft, promising to consider them once more before issuing a final decision.
The fate of the four dams is not only tied to the species of endangered fish that migrate up and down the Kennebec River but also to New England’s demand for reliable sources of electricity free of climate-warming gasses.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cites this demand as one of the core reasons for continuing the four dams’ operations and maintaining the 47 megawatts of total electric capacity they provide Maine’s grid, which accounted for roughly six percent of the state’s hydroelectric capacity in 2023.
Burrows told The Monitor that he agrees with the commission’s overall appraisal of hydroelectricity’s value, but he questions whether the power that some dams provide is worth the toll on the surrounding ecosystem.
“There are some dams in Maine that are incredibly valuable for hydropower that should never be touched, never go away,” Burrows said. ”But the most harmful dams in Maine … tend to be the ones much lower in the watershed” and tend not to be “huge power generators or economically profitable.”
Burrows and Sean Mahoney, senior counsel at the Conservation Law Foundation, said the groups would likely let the licensing process play out further before mounting legal opposition. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decisions are eligible for appeal, which would come before any lawsuit is filed, Mahoney said.
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from the Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.
