Letter to the editor

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 11:30am

Save the Dam Falls Committee

Labor Day weekend. (Photo courtesy Save the Dam Falls Committee)

The MRCAC (Megunticook River Citizens' Advisory Committee) recently published a summary of a Q&A session with representatives from NOAA. This letter is in response to the contents of that summary.

At the recent presentation to the Megunticook River Citizens' Advisory Committee (MRCAC) by the team from NOAA, Matt Bernier and Jamie Carter made several repeated assertions that bear examination. Bernier and Carter took pains to describe that their project in Camden is midway in the process; in their words, the project is “in the pipeline” and “ticks all the boxes” — which we take to mean the grant for the “restoration” project is already approved in their minds, in spite of the fact that Camden has not applied for the grant and indeed has had no public hearing and showed no public approval for restructuring the Megunticook River.

Their assumptions about the process and the so-called benefits to Camden have yet to be examined.

The presenters from NOAA are trying to apply a model that is derived from other rivers in Maine and New England, but which does not apply to the Megunticook River. They stressed that the twin reasons for funding restructuring of the Megunticook River are to prevent flooding and enable alewives to return to the Megunticook watershed.

In examining their twin assumptions, a close reading of the Interfluve reports will show that the Montgomery Dam, in particular, poses no threat of flooding to downtown Camden. As Matt Bernier pointed out, “The dams are not providing flood storage” — but if they do not back up the waters, how can they be said to cause flooding? As for the Montgomery Dam, he noted that “that water is going to have to go somewhere.” In the case of the Montgomery Dam, the answer is reassuring — it simply flows over the dam and out to sea without causing upstream flooding.

As for the notion that fish ladders will “restore” a fish run to the Megunticook, it is an assumption that does not withstand examination. There is no study that reports a historical record of an alewife run in the Megunticook River. As Barbara Dyer points out in her writing on the history of the Megunticook and Camden, “It is the only river in Maine that the ocean never enters, even though fresh and salt water do come together near the falls, at the head of the harbor.”

Given that there is no factual basis for their interest in “restoring” the Megunticook, why are they pursuing this project?

Another assertion they made repeatedly is that there will be some economic advantage in rerouting the Megunticook. There is no supporting evidence for this assertion.

Their final repeated assertion is, “NOAA isn’t going to come into communities and tell folks what to do with these projects.” Yet that is precisely what they are doing. And it is apparently working in Camden. By dangling a multi-million-dollar grant in front of town officials, those town officials have made decisions and taken votes in order, in their own words, to avoid “jeopardizing” the grant. Our town policies are already being skewed by the golden gleam of a federal grant.

The Save the Dam Falls Committee is vitally concerned about this grant process, because we recognize that the destruction of Montgomery Dam and its waterfall would be a colossal loss to the town of Camden. We do not see a colossal gain to balance that loss. NOAA has not showed that Camden will come out ahead if we accept their money. Perhaps we should not accept their money.

For the Save the Dam Falls Committee,

Karen Grove

Jean Brewer

Jo Ann Simon

Tom Rothwell

Ken Gross

Bernice Berger

Charles Graham