Forest City dam proposal riles area residents

Woodland Pulp's proposal to surrender its Forest City dam license has been met with stiff resistance by camp owners on East Grand Lake, the eighth largest lake in Maine, since removal of two of the dam's gates could drop the level of the 25-square-mile lake by over six feet. The company also is seeking to surrender its license to operate the Lower Sysladobsis Lake dam on the west branch of the St. Croix River. For decades, Woodland Pulp has been trying to exempt from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licensing its four water storage dams, which also include the ones at Vanceboro and West Grand Lake.
On December 23 Woodland Pulp applied to FERC to surrender its new 30-year license to own and operate the U.S. side of the dam at Forest City and to decommission the dam structure by permanently removing the two gates on the U.S. side of the dam. The company argued that the license requirements make the project uneconomical and requested that the commission immediately suspend five license requirements, as the company "does not need to waste money."
David Townsend, president of the Chiputneticook Lakes International Conservancy (CLIC), wrote in an update about the proposal from the CLIC that the board members believe "there would be devastating conservation, environmental, heritage, public safety, recreational and economic consequences if two of the three gates of that dam at Forest City are permanently removed."
In his filing with FERC in response to Woodland Pulp's request, Leonard White of Ashburn, Va., who has a camp on East Grand Lake, notes that Woodland Pulp's environmental study estimated that removal of the control gates could lower the water levels by up to 6.25 feet, and he observed that MacAllister Cove would be turned into a mud flat. Walter Sullivan of Orient was among the homeowners on East Grand Lake who wrote in opposition, noting that removal of the dam gates would mean shorefront property owners could no longer launch their boats. He also noted that the towns of Orient, Weston and Danforth "depend heavily on the tax value of the waterfront property to keep the towns solvent."
Arthur Wheaton, president of the Woodie Wheaton Land Trust, based in Forest City, wrote that removal of the gates would cause "widespread and catastrophic" impacts, including "permanent injury to lake and stream fisheries and aquatic biota, reduced scenic and aesthetic values, negative impacts to navigation and boating safety, reduced private property values, direct damage to the sporting economy of guides and fishing lodges, overall loss to area tourism and commerce, dramatically altered shoreline, damaged use and value of conserved lands, losses to recreational opportunity, impaired ability to manage water storage in the upper St. Croix watershed for flood control and electric power generation, and increased challenges for customs and border protection in both the United States and New Brunswick."
Also writing to FERC was the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which stated that if the license is surrendered and the dam is opened, village sites once occupied by the Passamaquoddy Tribe would become exposed and in danger of archaeological looting.
Although Woodland Pulp issued a public notification of its intentions by using a listing of interested parties created from its other FERC proceedings, Townsend says that list did not contain the names of the affected towns or shoreline owners. "Even now, many affected owners are unaware that their shoreline property interests are at risk," he says.
Scott Beal, communications manager for Woodland Pulp, states that the company "is not at all interested in adversely affecting anything on any of these beautiful lakes. It just seems no matter what we in the regulated community do, it is never enough or never good enough." He has previously stated, "Woodland Pulp seeks a community-based solution that is fair and that, as much as possible, maintains what has been in place for decades."
Whether Woodland Pulp's surrendering of the license would necessarily mean that the lake water level would drop is not clear. On November 26, 2014, Woodland Pulp filed comments to FERC stating that project retirement would dewater the lakes because Woodland Pulp would be "forced to remove all control structures from the storage dams so that they no longer store water, and the impoundments behind the dams will be drawn down." FERC responded on December 18, 2014, stating, "Woodland Pulp misunderstands the implications of project surrender." FERC explained that surrender of license "does not mean that the project's dams or gates would have to be removed or that the impoundments would be drawn down." FERC stated that the "dams and impoundments could remain, and the reservoirs could continue to provide environmental and recreational benefits to the region."
Paul Bisulca, a member of the Schoodic Riverkeepers, a Passamaquoddy group that seeks to restore indigenous fish and wildlife to their historic homelands, suggests that area residents could tell FERC that they want the federal agency to condition the surrender application to ensure that the lake level is maintained at the summer level, with a narrow band of fluctuation that best suits their interests while meeting the required discharge flow.
Townsend says the Save the Dam group has been pressing for a public hearing on the issue by FERC, which should make a decision on whether to hold a hearing once it has reviewed comments received at the end of the 30-day submission period, which began on April 6.
In a separate effort to have the dams no longer under the FERC requirements, last year Congressman Bruce Poliquin filed a bill to exempt Woodland Pulp's water storage dams from federal licensing, and while that bill has not moved forward, Beal says, "We are hopeful the congressman will indeed reintroduce legislation to exempt us from FERC jurisdiction. We're not sure how this will conclude, as we've never filed to surrender a project before." This week Poliquin did reintroduce the measure.

County weighs in
During the April 13 meeting of the Washington County commissioners, Dean Preston, supervisor of the county's unorganized territories, reported that the operational changes of the Forest City dam with a potential six-foot drop in lake levels could have an impact on three areas: habitat, recreational use of East Grand and several other lakes and property values. Chris Gardner, chair of the commissioners, commented, "From the county perspective, we'll back whatever effort has the dam remain."
Concerning the potential impacts, Lance Wheaton of Forest City, who said he helped build the Forest City dam, noted that there are 518 camps in just one section of the lake near the dam.
Rick Jordan of Machiasport, a retired Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist, said if lake levels drop by six feet the spawning habitat for fish may be high and dry or much reduced. Currently the water levels vary by no more than a foot during spawning times.
Further explaining the effect on habitat, Townsend says the CLIC is concerned about the destruction of late summer and fall spawning habitat for brook trout and landlocked salmon in Forest City Stream and Mud Lake Stream and the loss of spawning habitat for bass in certain sandy and gravel laden areas of East Grand Lake. Additionally, CLIC will urge FERC to consider that the Monument Brook Wetland Area contains over 600 acres of emergent marsh and sedge meadow that are critical habitat for wading birds, waterfowl and other birds. Removal of the gates at Forest City will likely drain much of this wetland habitat.