August 27, 2010 - restoring old dams? sunken treasure

Storm over the Kennebec River near Dresden

Earlier this month, I wrote about the situation at Scribner's Mill on the Crooked River in Maine.  The Scribner's Mill Preservation Project is doing a great job of restoring the old sawmill located on the banks of the river.  Formerly, the sawmill was paired with a nine-foot dam that was breached in 1972; prior to dam breach, the impounded water fell through water wheels to power the mill directly.  The mill preservationists are again proposing to build a dam on the site to allow the mill to regain its status as a working water mill.  Two years ago, they proposed putting up a 4' dam; the Maine Department of Environmental Protection rejected their efforts.  Now they're proposing a 3' dam.

Arguments against rebuilding the dam include ones based on the importance of the Crooked River to the entire Sebago Lake ecosystem.  The Crooked River is the principal spawning habitat for the famous wild landlocked salmon in the lake.  Landlocks are the same species as Atlantic salmon, but spend their entire lives in fresh water.  Maine has a special fishery for wild landlocked salmon, and Sebago Lake is one of its most accessible waterbodies.  In addition to fisheries concerns, the Crooked River is also the principal surface inflow of water into the lake, which is the drinking source for about 200,000 people in Maine.

Last night, Maine Public Broadcasting Network ran a good story on the debate.

In other renewable news: following on the recent ORPC tidal energy turbine installation at a Coast Guard facility in Eastport, today the Coast Guard is raising a wind turbine at a Southwest Harbor facility.


Who doesn't love a tale of a forgotten shipwreck holding a sunken treasure?  During a blizzard in February 1944, the British freighter Empire Knight foundered on a covered reef near Boon Island off York, Maine.  The ship broke up and sank.  In 1990, the Coast Guard learned that the ship contained over 17,000 pounds of mercury.  Divers recovered a small portion of the mercury and contaminated material, but found that 16,000 pounds had escaped and was loose in a cargo hold.  The Coast Guard closed the site.  Now, a treasure hunter wants to recover the mercury in an environmentally responsible manner -- and also what he believes may be copper-platinum wire worth $200 million (a bit more valuable than the copper wire commonly stolen!), plus a "secret cargo" that could be worth from $10 million on up.

4/1/10

Happy April Fools' Day.

Rain watch: the Kennebunk River flooded over roads in York County.

Near the site of the (now removed) Fort Halifax dam, a major landslide occurred yesterday. The Morning Sentinel reports that Maine Emergency Management Agency director Richard Beausoleil said, "I’ve never seen a landslide like this. At least no one was injured and no one was fishing on the bank.”

Voters at the town meeting in Woodstock, Maine, turned down a proposed wind turbine siting ordinance that included a moratorium. This proposal was targeted at the Spruce Mountain Wind Project proposed by Patriot Renewables, which will include 11 turbines rated at 2 MW, with an estimated 55 million kilowatt hours of electric generation per year. 2416' Spruce Mountain (topo map) is prominently visible from Route 26; every time I've headed to Sunday River and the Bethel area, I've looked off to the right and seen the ledgy ridge stretching off to the northeast, and wondered about access. Patriot, developer of the 4.5 MW Beaver Ridge wind project in Freedom, is financed by Jay Cashman -- that's right, one person.