Why are NOAA and conservation groups interested in fish passage on the river?

The Narramissic-Orland River provides significant habitat for sea-run (migratory or diadromous) fish, including endangered Atlantic salmon and alewives. As a major coastal tributary to the Penobscot River, restoring the Narramissic will contribute to the larger Penobscot River Restoration Project.

Orland Dam Committee Chair John Barlow (left) shows the Orland Dam to NOAA Fisheries leadership, June 2015

A recent assessment of Northeastern U.S. rivers placed Orland among the top 5% of watersheds with the most anadromous fisheries potential. This is largely because the river still has fish, including a harvestable run of alewives, but also because the land area is relatively undeveloped and the water is clean. Fisheries scientists believe that restoring these migratory fish, millions of which once filled the Penobscot River and Gulf of Maine, will also help support restored populations of cod and other groundfish, which eat alewives.

For these reasons, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a member of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, has been working on Penobscot tributaries. TNC worked with the Town of Orland to replace a problem culvert on Winkumpaugh Brook ("a nice little trout stream" according to TNC's Jeremy Bell) under Happytown Road.

However, the current situation is preventing Orland's fish potential from being realized. Two existing fish ladders at the dam are too small, and cannot be accessed during periods of low tide, lowering the efficiency of passage for alewives, Atlantic salmon and American eel. The fishways only work, at best, 50% of the time when tides are high enough.

The dark cloud in the water is alewives crowding below the Orland Dam during their upstream migration, June 2015

Other species known to occur downstream of the dam—including endangered shortnose sturgeon, American eel and striped bass—will not use the ladders. There is no dedicated downstream passage, and outmigrating juvenile alewives are often stranded on the timber spillway of the dam. Below is a video of alewives, confused by the flows below the fishway, trying to get upstream.

NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) share responsibility for implementing the Endangered Species Act, the purpose of which is to conserve and manage threatened and endangered species and the ecosystems on which they depend. Generally, the USFWS has jurisdiction for land and freshwater species, while NMFS has jurisdiction for marine and anadromous species. Three species of fish in the Orland River are listed as threatened or endangered:

• Atlantic salmon (endangered)

• Shortnose sturgeon (endangered)

• Atlantic sturgeon (threatened)

Additionally, rainbow smelt and alewives are considered “special concern.” Thus the Town of Orland, as the owner of the dam, is liable for any harm that might occur to endangered species or their habitat, including delays in migration. The federal government, working on behalf of all American citizens, has a stewardship obligation to protect the Nation’s fish and wildlife. 

How old is the Orland Village Dam?

The current Orland Village Dam was built in the 1930s by the Maine Seaboard Paper Company to create a water supply for the paper mill in Bucksport; however, it was never used for this purpose, as Alamoosook Lake proved to be a more efficient alternative. The dam is located at the head of tide, and replaced older dams (see photo below from 1910) across what historically had been called the “Lower Falls.”

The falls powered sawmills in the late 1700s. The falls must have been large enough to prevent ship traffic, because in December 1816 the Massachusetts Legislature incorporated the Eastern River Lock & Sluice Company to move vessels and goods over the falls. Company owners John N. Swazey, Joseph R. Folsom, and Joseph Lee constructed a series of locks at Lower Falls shortly afterwards, enabling navigation to their mills near the outlet of “Great Pond” or Alamoosook Lake. The company could thus charge a toll for moving boards, planks, bark, timber, clapboards, shingles, etc. through the locks to the Penobscot waterfront. They were allowed to make a sluice and lock or locks “from the outlet of Eastern River Great Pond, so called, to the waters below the falls, at the head of the tide in the town of Orland” and to erect a dam, provided that their activity did not interfere with an 1814 law protecting fish passage. An 1825 Maine law reinforced the fish passage requirement.

In 1869, Walter Wells noted in his report, Water-Power of Maine that the river fell 15-16 feet from the outlet of Alamoosook to the “stone dam at tidewater.” “The dam at the head of tide is substantially built of granite, head and fall 10 feet, ponding the water back two miles to the Great pond dam; saw, grist, and stave mills.”

Archaeologist Warren Moorehead, who investigated ancient Wabanaki “red paint” cemeteries in 1912, wrote of Orland: “At Orland we found the Narramissic flowing in a picturesque little valley. There is a dam here which furnishes power for a saw mill and a grist mill. Above the dam the water is fresh; below, it is salt, and small schooners tie up at the wharf below the dam. In Indian times there were falls two or three meters in height where the dam is now located. On either side of the stream at this point there are high, steep hills, as the river has cut out a miniature gorge on its passage to the Penobscot. The banks flanking these hills were favorite resorts for aboriginal fishing parties…” 

References

Moorehead, W.K. 1922. A Report on the Archaeology of Maine. Andover, MA: The Andover Press.

State of Maine. 1825. Private Acts of the State of Maine, Passed by the Fifth Legislature, at its Session Held in January, 1825. Portland: Todd and Smith. 

State of Massachusetts. 1816. Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston: Russell, Cutler & Co.

Wells, W. 1869. The Water-Power of Maine. Augusta: Sprague, Owen & Nash.