May 21, 2024 (Waterville/Augusta, ME) — Thousands of Mainers who care about the fate of Maine’s Kennebec River are urging federal officials to consider survival of sea-run fish, including critically endangered Atlantic salmon, as licensing actions for the river’s lowermost four dams are underway.
More than 2,000 people have signed a petition calling for a collaborative solution on the Kennebec to save critically endangered Atlantic salmon and other sea-run fish ahead of two Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) public hearings in Waterville and Augusta on May 21-22. The hearings will take public comment on a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that analyzes the impacts that the four dams between Waterville and Skowhegan have on migratory fish passage.
A coalition of local residents, conservation and fishing groups, and the Wabanaki Tribes have long called for removal of the four dams between Waterville and Skowhegan because they block access to some of the best spawning habitat in the Northeast on the Sandy River. The groups are speaking out against FERC’s draft EIS because it relies on engineered fish passage that has not worked anywhere else in the world and has led to failures elsewhere in the U.S. including on the Connecticut, Merrimack, and Androscoggin Rivers.
What Mainers are Saying
Waterville City Councilor Thomas Klepach: “The Atlantic salmon is one of the world’s great fish species, and its survival is to an extent in our hands right here in Waterville. This moment is the opportunity for people of the Kennebec Valley to be a part of a powerful international success story in the restoration of the Kennebec River as the preeminent biological hotspot for diadromous fish on earth.”
Odanak First Nation citizen Mali Obomsawin: “As Wabanaki peoples, our own sustenance relies on the health of waterways and the fish that share them with us. Our primary concern and responsibility is protecting aquatic life, not corporate profits. Therefore, water protectors and allied environmentalists are calling for the removal of the four dams below the Sandy River.” (source)
Steve Brooke, lifelong fisherman, Farmingdale resident, and retired Senior Planner from the State Planning Office: “Rivers change and priorities change over time. We should start learning from things that haven’t worked in the past. These four dams provide very little power and do a lot of damage to an ecosystem that could be vibrant. We’ve already lost fisheries on all the big rivers south of us including the Connecticut and Merrimack because of failed fish passage proposals. Our Kennebec deserves better.”
Former Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner George Lapointe: “Past fish restoration projects on the Kennebec River, Penobscot River, and other rivers have shown that we can accomplish environmental restoration and job maintenance in Maine. It is time to show this same commitment for the Kennebec River upstream from Waterville.” (source)
Wilderness Guide Sean McCormick: “I am most concerned about the first four dams on the river and believe they are not worth the harm they cause to the Kennebec and the entire Gulf of Maine…It’s not possible to restore Atlantic salmon without restoring all of the sea-run fish species that also used to live in the Kennebec.” (source)
Gardiner Mayor Patricia Hart: “The Cobbosseecontee Stream sturgeon run of 2023 was a powerful reminder of the richness of the Kennebec fisheries and a glimpse of what the river could be if we continue to help it return to a more natural state. While much progress has been made, dams upstream from Gardiner continue to impact our native fisheries, restricting the river’s wildlife populations and limiting recreational and commercial fishing industries.” (source)
Waterville resident and retired middle school teacher Willie Grenier: “As soon as the Veazie and Great Works Dams were out of the Penobscot River, people were catching shad in Old Town just above the mill. The American Canoe Association held its Whitewater Nationals in the rapids where the dam had been. That’s win-win. We can do the same here on the Kennebec — and we must if we want to recover endangered salmon in Maine.” (source)
Additional Background on the Kennebec River
The Kennebec was once the most productive river in Maine for sea-run fish, with Atlantic salmon runs in the hundreds of thousands. Salmon travel thousands of miles to the waters off Greenland and back, returning to spawn in the same freshwater streams where they were born. Atlantic salmon are culturally, economically, and spiritually important to many people across Europe and eastern North America, and particularly the Wabanaki Tribes of Maine and Canada.
The lower Kennebec surged back to life after the removal of the Edwards and Fort Halifax Dams in 1999 and 2008, bringing back millions of sea-run fish, such as shad and river herring. But that success has stalled because the Lockwood, Hydro-Kennebec, Shawmut, and Weston Dams create an impassable wall for adult salmon and other fish moving upstream from the Gulf of Maine. Warm temperatures and predators in the 30 miles of stagnant water behind these dams are also killing younger salmon, river herring, and shad as they try to return to the ocean.
To keep salmon from vanishing from the Kennebec, the DMR trucks Atlantic salmon captured at the first of the four dams, Lockwood Dam in Waterville, to spawning habitat in the Sandy River, a Kennebec tributary. In 2023, 162 salmon were captured at Lockwood. Each winter, DMR and dedicated volunteers also plant millions of salmon eggs in sediments in the Sandy River watershed. This intensive human intervention is the only thing sustaining Atlantic salmon in the Kennebec at this time.
FERC will accept public comments on the draft EIS through June 4, 2024. A final EIS is expected later in 2024. FERC licenses typically last 30 to 50 years.
Learn more:
- Natural Resources Council of Maine: nrcm.org/programs/waters/kennebec-restoration/restoring-kennebec-river/
- Atlantic Salmon Federation: asf.ca/work/headwaters/
- Trout Unlimited: tu.org/kennebec and prioritywaters.tu.org/maine
- Maine Rivers: mainerivers.org/current-priorities/
- Conservation Law Foundation: clf.org
The Kennebec Coalition, comprised of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Maine Rivers, Natural Resources Council of Maine, Trout Unlimited, and Trout Unlimited’s Kennebec Valley Chapter, is working to restore Maine’s Kennebec River in partnership with the Conservation Law Foundation.
