November 10, 2010 - dam removal on Martha's Vineyard

This summer I was fortunate to spend a week on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.  I learned about the island's energy resources, including solar and wind on Martha's Vineyard.

Photo: wind power near the islands: Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Following up on my recent looks at dam removal, today I'm looking at some possible dam removal activity on Martha's Vineyard.  It's what you might term a large-sized island: 87.48 square miles (231.75 km²), making it the third-largest island on the east coast of the US, and the largest island on the east coast not tied to land by a bridge or tunnel.  Population-wise, the year-round population of about 15,000 residents is augmented by tourists and seasonal residents, peaking at up to 75,000 people in summer.  Still, it's a manageable size, with all points of the island relatively accessible to visitors.

It's the relatively moderate size of Martha's Vineyard that made me surprised to learn that the island is home to at least 3,000 dams.  That's about 13 dams per square kilometer, or 34 dams per square mile.  The vast majority of these dams were built in the last 200 years to provide power, water, or both to mills -- almost all of which are no longer in operation.  With no maintenance, and no ongoing operations like hydropower production, many of these dams have become overgrown, forgotten, and in poor condition.

In response to a near-disaster in 2005 when rain-induced flooding nearly broke an old dam in a densely-populated area, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted new dam safety and liability laws.  These changes made it more clear that whoever owns a dam is responsible for its safety -- and for the consequences of its failure.  Many property owners did not even realize that they owned aging dams when they purchased former industrial sites, like the Briggsville Dam in Clarksburg whose owner was surprised to find itself responsible for costly repairs or removal.

When costly repairs are required to maintain state and federal licenses and certifications, dam removal is one option.  Some dams on the Vineyard still provide valuable services, like flood control or providing water supply to residents and businesses.  Others, like the Mill Pond dam in West Tisbury, impound water for scenic and recreational purposes.  Still others remain in streams, holding back small ponds, in unknown condition.  Some may be candidates for removal, while others may be candidates for powering up as small hydro-electric sites.  As an island interested in sustainability, as well as reliability, it will be interesting to see which Martha's Vineyard dams are removed, and which will be restored.

November 3, 2010 - New Hampshire dam removal

Dam removal activities are ongoing across the country, and New Hampshire dam removals are among them.  Continuing my survey of dams being removed: today, a look at recent and potential future dam removal activity in New Hampshire.  (If you're looking for Maine dam removal information, check out my post here.)

Photo: a half-forgotten cemetery hidden in the woods just off the beaten track.

According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, the following New Hampshire rivers have seen dams removed in the last decade:

• Ashuelot River, McGoldrick Dam, Hinsdale (Removed, 2001)
• Ashuelot River, Winchester Dam, Winchester (Removed, 2002)
• Bearcamp River, Bearcamp River Dam, South Tamworth (Removed, 2003)
• Bellamy River, Bellamy River Dam #5, Dover (Removed, 2004)
• Contoocook River, West Henniker Dam, Henniker (Removed, 2004)
• Tioga River, Badger Pond Dam, Belmont (Breached, 2004)
• Champlin Pond Dam and Champlin Farm Pond Dam, Rochester (Removed, 2005)
• Pearl Lake Brook, Pearl Lake Brook Dam, Lisbon (Removed 2007)
• Souhegan River, Merrimack Village Dam, Merrimack (Removed 2008)
• Black Brook, Maxwell Pond Dam, Manchester (Removed 2009)
• Winnicut River, Winnicut River Dam, Greenland (Removed 2009)

To this list, we can add at least one 2010 removal:

• Ashuelot River, Homestead Woolen Mill Dam, West Swanzey

November 2, 2010 - Veazie dam removal

Yesterday, I looked at the Great Works Dam on the Penobscot River, and the plans to remove it.  Today, let's consider the history and fate of its sister the Veazie Dam - another dam linked by the Penobscot River Restoration Project to ultimate removal.

Photo: fall foliage near the mouth of the Kennebec River, Maine.


The Veazie Project is the lowermost project on the entire Penobscot River system.  It consists of a 902-foot-long, 25-foot-high, concrete gravity dam with inflatable rubber flashboards, a reservoir with a surface area of about 390 acres and a storage capacity of 4,800 acrefeet at a surface elevation of 34.8 feet mean-sea-level (msl), and two powerhouses on the Veazie (west) side of the river (Plant A with an installed capacity of 5.4 MW and Plant B with an installed capacity of 3 MW). A forebay located on the right side of the river feeds both powerhouses. The tailrace of Plant A is located under the concrete floor of the forebay and Plant B releases water into the river downstream of the dam. The project also includes two fish ladders: an abandoned fishway on the left bank of the river, and an operable ladder between the spillway and forebay.

As part of the comprehensive basin-wide settlement agreement between environmental advocacy organizations, state and federal agencies, and the dam owners on the Penobscot River system, the Veazie Dam is slated for removal. The Penobscot River Restoration Trust has won approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to initiate the demolition of the Veazie dam by drawing down the impoundment through the project’s gates and by deflating the flashboards.  Next, access roads would be constructed on the east bank of the Penobscot, both upstream and downstream of the dam to facilitate the demolition of the abandoned fish ladder and the east half of the spillway. Once these easterly roads are removed, the remaining portion of the spillway, powerhouse B, the operational fish ladder, the forebay, and tailrace would be removed by a west bank access road.

As the impoundments behind newly constructed dams fill with water, they often cover rivers' previous history.  Approximately 1,900 feet upstream of the Veazie Project are the submerged remnants of the historic Veazie Lumber Company Mill dam.  Because this structure is expected to significantly impair natural river flow once the Veazie dam is removed, this historic remnant is also slated for removal once the Veazie Dam is gone.

All this arises through the Lower Penobscot River Basin Comprehensive Settlement Accord.  As FERC describes it, the Settlement Accord will open a large amount of habitat to anadromous fish in the Penobscot Basin by removing the Veazie and Great Works dams and constructing a bypass around the Howland dam while retaining up to 90% of the then existing hydroelectric generating capacity within the Penobscot River area.

October 29, 2010 - removing the Briggsville Dam

Photo: down by the West Point dock, Phippsburg.

In Clarksburg, Massachusetts, the Briggsville Dam on the North Branch of the Hoosic River is slated for removal next week.  Preliminary site work has already begun.  At 15 feet in height and 200 feet in length, the Briggsville Dam once provided cooling water to the adjacent Strong-Hewatt Mill.

Here is an interesting article on the pros and cons of removing the Briggsville dam. It's a story whose general contours will resonate with a lot of people in historic mill towns. We have a dam built in the early to mid-1900s to support a manufacturing facility. The factory changes hands several times, until a new mill owner finds it also owns the aging dam. For safety reasons (and in many places, to facilitate fish passage), the dam needs expensive upgrades -- or faces removal.

This is the story of many small dams and hydroelectric facilities across the country.  In Clarksburg, the mill was the Strong-Hewatt woolen mill.  The current owner is Cascade School Supplies Co.,who was apparently surprised to find that the building it acquired came with an aging dam.  Although fish passage will be improved by the removal of the Briggsville Dam, the primary driver of its removal are the safety issues caused by its poor condition.  Dam safety is an important issue, and without the proper capital investments in maintenance and repairs, maintaining an older dam can become an expensive liability.  (For example, see what's going on in Canton, Maine, with the Whitney Brook dam and Lake Anasagunticook.  Or what happened when the Colcord Pond dam failed this past spring.)

In this case, the Briggsville Dam appears to have been used to provide cooling water to the mill, not to generate electricity, so any policy reasons to leave it in are more clearly outweighed by the safety issues. Moreover, it will help the mill property owner avoid the costs of repairing the dam, letting Cascade stay in business at that location.

Certainly an interesting issue.  If you're near Clarksburg, swing by and take a last look at the Briggsville Dam.

4/28/10: dam repair and communications; from wood mill to energy plant

Dam news: repairs to the New Mills Dam in Gardiner, Maine. In order to repair two uprights on the New Mills Dam in Gardiner, the Cobbossee Watershed District has drawn down Cobbosseecontee Stream and attached Pleasant Pond by almost a vertical foot, exposing more pond and stream bottom than in the past six years. The two wooden uprights of the dam were damaged by high water and bashed by ice in late February. Kruger Energy, which also operates a hydroelectric dam downstream that it acquired last November from Ridgewood Maine Hydro Partners LP, is performing the repairs, which are expected to take one day.

The New Mills Dam demonstrates one relatively common form of small dam ownership in New England. In this case, the dam is owned by the municipalities of Gardiner, Litchfield and Richmond. These three owners pay for the upkeep, while Kruger Energy is contracted out to manage maintenance and repairs.

Here, the drawdown has concerned some people who live along the impoundment. They are concerned about erosion, nesting ducks, fish, and in general about the management of the impoundment. While the drawdown is required for safety during the dam repairs, this situation demonstrates the importance of communication and collaboration between dam owners and neighboring abutters.



From a forest products mill to an energy facility! The town of Madison is considering the potential transformation of the former Anson Stick Mill into an energy-producing facility. The town acquired the abandoned mill and its biomass boiler from Downeast Woodcrafters, and now is exploring creating a municipal heating district within the downtown area. While municipal heating districts are common in Europe, as well as on American institutional campuses (e.g. universities), the practice is not widely deployed in New England. Madison Economic Development Director Joy Hikel said the goal behind a potential energy-producing facility is twofold: to reduce heating or electricity costs for the owners of the downtown buildings by 40 to 50 percent, and to provide local utility Madison Electric Works with an affordable source of energy to sell to consumers.