AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Delighting environmentalists, the federal government for the first time Tuesday ordered the removal of a hydroelectric dam over the operator's objections to let fish swim upstream.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 2-1 to order the dismantling of the 160-year-old Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River.
The commission refused to reissue an operating license to the Edwards Manufacturing Co., which provides electric power to a utility, and ordered Edwards to pay the estimated $6.4 million cost of removing its dam.
Environmentalists said the ruling will free up 17 miles of spawning grounds for striped bass, sturgeon, Atlantic salmon and herring - species that have had a hard time thriving in the dammed-up rivers of the Northeast.
``If any dam deserves to be the first that FERC orders removed, Edwards Dam does,'' said Charles Gauvin, president of Trout Unlimited. ``Edwards is a dinosaur. Throughout the Northeast and the Northwest, sea-run fish like salmon have been decimated by dam after dam.''
Edwards said it will appeal the ruling to try to keep the dam. At the same time it intends to go to court to ask for reimbursement of the removal costs and demand just compensation for the loss of its only dam.
``They make public policy. They're just not free to do so at our expense,'' said Mark Isaacson, Edwards vice president. ``We don't like being used as a sacrificial lamb.''
It was the first time the government has required the removal of a dam whose license holder wanted to continue operating it. Congress passed a law in 1986 requiring FERC to balance power generation and environmental protection when it licenses hydroelectric dams.
FERC's predecessor, the Federal Power Commission, authorized the removal of seven dams since the 1920s. But the license holders wanted to abandon the projects anyway.
Some 550 dams across the country are up for relicensing within the next 15 years, and environmentalists hope to duplicate their success in Augusta in other areas of the United States.
The Edwards Dam, made of huge timbers and topped with concrete, was erected in 1837 to provide a textile mill with mechanical power. It was fitted in 1920 to produce hydroelectric power. It rises 20 feet above the water's surface and spans the entire 900-foot width of the Kennebec.
The dam's removal will open up the longest stretch of spawning habitat north of New York's Hudson River, said the Kennebec Coalition, a group of environmental and fishing groups.
Environmentalists have been pushing for the dam's removal since the late 1980s. Of the 10 fish-blocking structures built along the Kennebec, the Edwards Dam is the closest to the ocean, about 40 miles away.
While some dams have fish ladders to allow fish to get upstream, the Edwards did not.
Peter Didisheim of the Natural Resources Council of Maine said species such as short-nosed and Atlantic sturgeon, striped bass and Atlantic salmon do not fare well with fish ladders, so modifying the dam would not be very useful.
AP-NY-11-25-97
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