A Debate Runs Through It

WHITEFIELD -- To remove or not to remove the dam.

That is the question voters will discuss at a meeting Nov. 8, one week before they vote at a special town meeting whether to remove Coopers Mills Dam.

The special town meeting is scheduled for Nov. 15. Both meetings are 7 p.m. at Whitefield Elementary School.

The Sheepscot River Watershed Council and other interested organizations, including Trout Unlimited, want to remove the town-owned dam and build a rock ramp that would maintain sufficient water for fire protection but not obstruct fish passage.

While the current dam is not a source of power, it serves as a source of water for the Fire Department. A dry hydrant at the dam allows for direct pumping for fires in Coopers Mills village.

The 100-year-old dam also has a concrete fish ladder, owned and maintained by the state, that allows certain species of fish, including alewives and endangered Atlantic salmon, to swim up and down the river, past the Coopers Mills dam, to access spawning habitat.

The ladder allows fish to bypass the dam going up and down stream as long as the flow of water is sufficient to keep the level of the impoundment at the top of the dam.

But a 2005 dam inspection conducted by Kleinschmidt Associates of Pittsfield confirmed the dam is in disrepair and is a danger to public safety and conserving natural resources. There's significant leakage and deteriorated concrete and cracks, the report found.

A plan to remove the dam and build a rock ramp as a natural fish passage is in direct opposition to a recommendation made by the town's Coopers Mills Dam Committee.

In a final report presented to selectmen two weeks ago, the committee unanimously agree the dam and fishway should be repaired.

Stephen Smith, who serves on that committee, stood on top of the 150-foot-long, concrete-and-stone structure recently and watched whitewater rush over the spillway.

"The key factor here is the fish passage," Smith said. "If the dam is repaired and functioning properly, it will allow for fish passage as it did in the past. And eventually, we could have a hydropower station installed. From our studies, there is the possibility of producing electricity at an economical rate. And there's new subsides coming down the road."

Under current conditions, Smith said passage around the dam is generally available to most species of fish at times of typical use, except sometimes in late summer and fall.

If the leaks are repaired, Smith said it would stabilize the dam's water level, allowing year-round functioning of both the fire hydrant and fish ladder.

He said local contractors estimated repair costs of $65,000 to $75,000. Part of that cost would prepare the dam for hydropower -- compared to $218,000 estimated in the Kleinschmidt study.

Jeff Reardon of Trout Unlimited is worried about the quality of any repair work, which he said must last 30 years.

"If you're saving money by cutting corners, my question is: Is it going to work, and for how long?"

Another concern, he said, is finding funds.

If the town chooses to fix the dam, it would have to come up with the money on its own, he said.

On the other hand, Reardon said there is $200,000 dedicated to construction of the rock ramp and removal of the dam. The funds come from a Maine Yankee damage settlement, a fund administered by the state.

Kleinschmidt estimated it would cost $266,000 to remove the dam, build the rock ramp, and relocate a hydrant upstream.

None of Kleinschmidt's estimates include permitting fees or engineering and designer costs.

"If you look at $266,000, most of that probably is already raised," Reardon said. "There are funds available for restoration, but funds for maintaining existing dams are scarce and hard to come by. The big issue for the town is to pay for the (repair) project themselves or have this rock ramp somebody else pays for."

Smith disagrees, saying his committee found grants for dam repair and lots of upside from hydropower.

"With global warming and oil costing $100 a barrel, this is an issue that's going to blossom in the next five years," Smith said. "If we harness low-head hydro power, that's a tremendous amount of energy."

But Jed Wright of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said the dam is a marginal site for a hydropower, with startup costs of well over $3 million.

"If it were, in fact, profitable, it would benefit leasing the site to a developer or potentially use the energy for town needs, perhaps the school," said Louis Sells, committee chairman. "If we remove the dam, we lose the hydro potential."

Charlie Baeder of the Sheepscot River Watershed Council said his organization prefers that the dam be replaced with a rock ramp, but will support the town if it decides to repair the structure.

There is money available, he said through natural resource agencies to repair the concrete fishway.

"The rock ramp is a more natural habitat than a fishway, but besides that, it would reduce the maintenance cost and frequency of the day-to-day operation of the dam, which has been a challenge to the town," Baeder said.

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