Dam Good Paddling

AMC Outdoors, April 2006

In July 1, 1999, a crowd gathered on the banks of the Kennebec River in Maine to watch the making of history. That day, the Edwards Dam, built across the river at Augusta in 1837, became the first operating hydroelectric dam in the nation to be removed. Church bells pealed and spectators cheered as the first river water rushed through the dam’s breach, opening a new future, not just for the Kennebec, but for rivers everywhere. By the spring of 2000, thousands of alewives were coursing past Maine’s capital, followed by striped bass, sturgeon, and later by Atlantic salmon and shad. People took to the river too, putting in canoes and kayaks to paddle a stretch flowing freely for the first time since Thoreau wandered the woods of Maine.

For the last two decades, paddlers, anglers, and conservationists, together with scientists, government agencies, utility companies, and property owners have been working to restore the rivers they love. Thanks to their efforts, more than 400 dams in the United States have been removed, and scores of new river management agreements have been forged to benefit both fisheries and recreation. As hydropower dams come up for relicensing (most hydropower dams not owned by the federal government are licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for periods of 30 or 50 years), river enthusiasts of all stripes are working to ensure healthier flows and remove the dams that pose hazards to people and the environment. About 500 such licenses are due for review between 2000 and 2010. Dams have now been removed in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. For the first time in our nation’s history, the rate of dam deconstruction exceeds the rate of construction.

The impact of the Edwards Dam removal continues to be felt. “The response on the Kennebec was so quick and effective that the Edwards Dam really sent a message that for many dams on the Atlantic coast and in New England the benefits of removal are so large in relation to the costs,” says Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton administration.

Colonial settlers in the Northeast were the first to build dams in the country, in order to power grist mills and sawmills, so it seems fitting that New England should also produce the agreement that laid the groundwork for restoring rivers after years of hydropower generation had taken its toll.

“The Deerfield River Settlement Agreement set a national precedent,” says Ken Kimball, AMC’s Director of Research. Concluded in 1994, the agreement was the culmination of efforts begun by whitewater paddlers to ensure reliable releases from the river’s hydropower dams and to protect one of Massachusetts’ coldest and cleanest rivers. AMC took a leadership role, working with New England Power, conservationists, anglers, and boaters, says Kimball. In addition to guaranteed whitewater flows, the agreement provides fish passage-the Deerfield is known for its trout and is targeted for salmon restoration-and protection of over 18,000 acres of river land. “This was one of the first times,” says Andrew Fahlund of American Rivers, “that anglers and boaters found common cause, established strong alliances with government agencies, and worked with the power company to achieve conservation goals.” The Deerfield agreement, he says, established a model of negotiation that’s proven key to river restoration efforts ever since.

“The river’s changed dramatically since the agreement,” says Bruce Lessels, owner of Zoar Outdoor in Charlemont, Mass., who’s been paddling the Deerfield for 20 years. “In the ‘80s, the releases were really unreliable. Probably less than 20 people a year paddled here. Now,” he says, “it’s over 50,000 a year.”

“These groundbreaking efforts actually began with people sitting around a kitchen table,” says George May, conservation chairman of the Merrimack Valley Paddlers, who’ve been instrumental in New Hampshire river restoration.

In that group’s sights was the West Henniker Dam on the Contoocook River, a popular whitewater paddling run that winds through the picturesque town of Henniker in southern New Hampshire. As May describes it, the defunct 100-year-old mill dam created “a very nasty boil in the river” that was extremely hazardous to paddlers. Repairing the dam to state safety requirements would have cost more than taking it down. So when funds for removal and habitat restoration were made available with no cost to the town through a broad coalition of groupsÐincluding AMC, Merrimack Valley Paddlers, American Whitewater, Trout Unlimited, New Hampshire Fish and Game, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-the town opted for removal, which took place in 2004.

“This effort was led primarily by the Class IV boaters,” says May, “but it’s created a put-in for a Class II lower stretch of river. Before there was virtually no access for flat-water paddlers. It involves more people with the river.” With this stretch of river free of a dam for the first time since the 1700s, New Hampshire Fish and Game reports improved habitat for trout and other game fish, important to a state whose revenue from fishing exceeds $100 million annually.

Some 80 miles north, the Bearcamp River flows out of the White Mountains and tumbles through a gorge bubbling with Class IV rapids near the town of South Tamworth. For nearly 75 years, a dam had blocked the river there, impeding the migration of native brook trout and landlocked Atlantic salmon. “The dam hadn’t served a purpose in decades and had become a safety hazard,” explains Stephanie Lindloff, who worked on the project while serving as river restoration coordinator for the state of New Hampshire. Now the river flows freely from its headwaters for 28 miles, and whitewater habitat for both native fish and kayakers has been restored.

With the success of Edwards behind them, community watershed groups in Maine have begun to tackle even more audacious restoration projects. “The Edwards opened people’s minds to the possibilities of what could happen,” says Laura Rose Day, executive director of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust. The Penobscot is considered the best, and “last,” hope for restoring self-sustaining runs of native Atlantic salmon, she says. The ambitious project would remove the two dams closest to the ocean, decommission and create fish passage at a third, and make river-friendly improvements at four other dams.

“When the dams come out, this would be the first time in 200 years that uninterrupted paddling will be possible from the river’s historic fallsÐhome to the Penobscot Indian nation-to its mouth,” explains Day. Given the Penobscot’s dramatic drop, whitewater paddlers may find new playgrounds here. And she says, the removal of these dams will improve access for native sea-run fish to over 500 miles of habitat, yielding “ecological benefits that will dwarf those of the Edwards.” Under the terms of the restoration agreement, the Penobscot River trust must raise a total of $25 million by 2009 in order to purchase the three dams slated for decommissioning. The project has support from Maine’s Congressional delegation and has received $3.5 million in federal funding. “There’s a lot of momentum on all fronts,” says Day with optimism.

There’s another set of challenges involved in the effort to restore water quality and fish passage for the Atlantic salmon, shad, blueback herring, and fish native to the Presumpscot River. “There are eight dams on the river. The first, Smelt Hill Dam, was removed in 2002 through a citizen-led process, opening up a beautiful little whitewater stretch of river,” says Dusti Faucher, president of Friends of the Presumpscot. “Then five consecutive dams were relicensed in 2003,” Faucher explains. As part of that process, her group and American Rivers convinced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to make fish passage and certain flow requirements conditions of relicensing.

The dam owner, South African Pulp and Paper, Inc., is challenging these conditions, arguing that the state of Maine’s Clean Water Act certificate (granted under the federal Clean Water Act) only applies to a direct discharge of a pollutant, not to an impairment like dissolved oxygen which occurred below the dams. Having lost their case in Maine Supreme Court, the dam owners appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard the case in late February. The outcome of this case could dramatically affect states’ ability to regulate water quality, particularly where dam licensing is involved. Non-profit river and conservation groups, tribes, fishing groups and scientists from all across the country have joined Friends of the Presumpscot, the state of Maine, and others in this case.

A full five years after Edwards’ removal, “things on the lower Kennebec are very good,” says Nick Bennett, staff scientist with the Natural Resources Council of Maine. River conditions have improved substantially and “there’s been a dramatic increase in insect life,” says Bennett. This is a big deal for the river, he explains, as insects are vital to the aquatic food web and thus bodes well for continued improvements in health of the rivers’ herring, stripers, shad, sturgeon, and salmon. Anglers and those who cater to them are thriving too. “We have a lot more river to fish in,” and business has improved with Edwards Dam gone, says Bob Dionne of Aardvark Outfitters in Farmington, Maine, who guides fly-fishing trips on the Kennebec.

It’s important to remember, says Laura Wildman of American Rivers’ northeast field office, that the goal is not to remove dams for the sake of removing dams. “We’ll often go out to a site and make a recommendation that a dam not come out,” she says. The objective is to figure out what’s best for the whole river community. “Some dams may not be serving their original purpose but their recreational and aesthetic benefits exceed what could be achieved ecologically with their removal,” she explains, citing the dam that creates Sweet Pond in Guilford, Vt. She also stresses the importance of dialogue between dam owners and river advocates.

With the precedent set by successful removal of the Edwards Dam and many others, communities all across the country are identifying marginal dams, unsafe and abandoned dams, and questioning the reclicensing of dams whose environmental impacts are too costly. Most that have been removed are small and defunct, but larger operating hydropower dams like those on the Penobscot, Milltown Dam in Montana and those on the Elhwa River in Washington State are now slated for removal as well. And those that have been removed are but a fraction of the estimated 75,000 dams that span the nation’s rivers.

“What happens on these rivers from now on very much depends on the extent to which local watershed groups and river advocates are willing to keep up the pressure,” says Bruce Babbitt. “When you look at the success we’ve had, you realize how important it is to seek consensus at the local level. This is a real grassroots effort. The benefits are so spectacular, I’m certain that this work will continue as we’ve only scratched the surface of what remains to the done.”

As fish begin moving up their natal rivers in the Northeast this spring, paddlers will begin gliding downstream, some traveling waters flowing freely and accessible for the first time in generations. All because people who care for their rivers said, “Let’s see if this can happen.”

-Elizabeth Grossman is the author of Watershed: The Undamming of America and lives in Portland, Ore.