Ellsworth American story

Voters to decide fate of Orland Village Dam

 

May 21, 2016 by Taylor Bigler

Residents will decide the fate of the Orland Village Dam during a vote ahead of the annual Town Meeting.

Residents will vote on whether to keep and maintain the dam or work to have it removed.

The vote will be done by secret ballot from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Orland Community Center on Friday, June 14, and the result will be announced at Town Meeting the following day.

In the 1930’s, the Maine Seaboard Paper Co. built the dam to create a water supply for its Bucksport mill, but the Narramissic River was never used for that purpose.

Verso Paper owned the dam until 2010, when it turned ownership over to the town.

Since then, the Orland Dam Committee has raised funds for several rounds of feasibility studies by the engineering firm Stantec, the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), The Nature Conservancy and Maine Sea Grant to determine feasible options for what to do with the dam.

Those studies determined that the two most reasonable options are either for the town to pay for annual dam maintenance and future repairs or to work toward removing the dam completely.
Annual dam and fish run maintenance costs $7,000 in addition to future repairs. The dam has a life expectancy of about 30 years and it has been 17 since its last repair.

“The liability of keeping it is the cost of it in the future,” said committee Chairman John Barlow. “There could be major expenditures in the future.”

If the dam remains in place, the town would also be responsible for complying with federal fisheries regulations because of the existence of several species, including two threatened species.

The cost of dam removal is $500,000. The NOAA Fisheries Service is ready to help fund the removal because the river is seen as an environmental asset.

“Those funds are available right now should they decide to vote on removal,” Barlow said.
If voters do not decide to remove the dam this year, but change their minds in the future, the town would have to come up with that money itself.

“They aren’t going to just hold on to the money for us,” Barlow said.

The watershed is considered by NOAA to have the potential for restoration of several native fish habitats for species such as alewives and rainbow smelt among others. Matt Bernier, civil engineer and fisheries habitat restoration specialist with NOAA, said that since the fish ladder is only accessible at high tide, fewer fish are able to migrate upstream.

The Narramissic River once had the third-highest alewife population in the state, but the fishery has been in decline since alewives have difficulty getting through the narrow passage.

“There are problems with the downstream passage as well for alewives, without having the downstream passage at the site,” Bernier said. According to NOAA, if the dam were removed, several other fish species and possibly marine mammals might be able to swim in and out with the tide.

While dam removal has its ecological and financial benefits, it also has its disadvantages.

“Aesthetics are the main thing,” Barlow said. “What will it look like? We have seen some options, but there are still some unknowns.”

Fire protection is also a concern if the dam is removed.

Orland Fire Chief Bobby Conary is wary of dam removal, saying it will be difficult for firefighters to quickly access a water source should a fire break out in that part of the village.

“The bottom line is that I would hate to lose it because it is such a great water source right there,” he said. “It’s a historical part of town and it is probably one of the most congested areas we have.”
Conary said that should the town vote on dam removal, the department would fight fires the way it does in other areas of town that are not close to water sources.

“We will do whatever it takes to do fire suppression, whether the dam is there or not,” he said.

According to Barlow, the half-million dollar price tag for dam removal also includes funding for securing water for firefighting and determining how many homeowners’ wells would be susceptible to salt water intrusion.

“We don’t think many wells would be affected,” Barlow said.

The river’s current also will become much faster and work would need to be done on the two nearby bridges that would see saltwater intrusion.

Researchers also are studying the presence of a mercury hotspot beneath the dam.

Even if voters decide on removal, nothing will happen to the dam overnight. Removal would require permits and approval from groups ranging from historical to environmental and archaeological.

“It will be a number of years if it is ever removed,” Barlow said.

There will be an Orland Village Dam forum at 6 p.m. on June 1 at the Orland Community Center, where residents will have the opportunity to speak with Bernier and a Stantec engineer about the options for the dam.

Read the story in The Ellsworth American.

How can people learn more about the town's options?

Orland residents will have several opportunities to learn more about their options before the vote on June 14.

On Sunday, May 22, the Orland Village Dam, alewife harvesting operation and fish ladder will be open to the public at 2 p.m., as part of World Fish Migration Day celebrations.

At a public forum on Wednesday, June 1, at 6 p.m. at the Orland Community Center, speakers will present the results of numerous studies done on the dam and Narramissic River since 2011, talk about fish and wildlife changes and visual changes to expect with dam removal, and discuss the funding being offered to the town to remove the dam, and why.

For more information on the Orland Village Dam and upcoming programs, please contact Dam Committee Chair John Barlow at 469-3749. This website will be updated frequently between now and June 14.

What will the Narramissic look like without the dam?

Aerial view of the Orland Village Dam and Narramissic River. Photo by J. Royte

Removal of the dam would restore tidal conditions in the Narramissic River. (The existing dams at Alamoosook Lake and Toddy Pond will remain in place as part of the current proposed project.) Projections of what the river would look like without the dam are based on historical documents, environmental assessments, and engineering studies.

Engineering assessments included borings, water quality studies, and mapping the river bed, to evaluate potential conditions after dam removal. The available information suggests that the river will be constantly in motion, fluctuating with the tide, as a lot of water moves back and forth twice a day. Restoration of tidal conditions will substantially increase flow in the Narramissic River, with daily tidal flows exceeding 500 cubic feet per second (compared to 20 cfs now).

Some sediment and rubble has accumulated between the dam and the Castine Road Bridge; this material would wash downstream, revealing the "Lower Falls"--an area of rapids and tidal or reversing falls. Similar tidal or reversing falls can be found in Damariscotta, Blue Hill, and the Bagaduce River. There is not a lot of sediment upstream from the Castine Road Bridge because the dam at the Upper Falls (Alamoosook Lake) prevents downstream sediment transport.

Downstream of these rapids, the river would look mostly the same, although water quality (dissolved oxygen levels, temperature, etc.) will likely improve with restored tidal exchange.

Above the rapids, the water level in the village area will change depending on the tide. At high tide, the area will look almost the same, with a drop of about one foot (very similar to when the dam gates are open).

At low tide, the water level will be five feet lower than present, leaving a channel with a depth of seven feet in the middle of the river between the Castine Road and US Route 1 bridges. It will still look like a river at low tide, with rapids at the dam site (accentuated by the constriction of the Castine Road Bridge) and more rapids upstream.

Vegetation along the sides of the channel will change from freshwater plants to salt water plants, with salt marsh possibly developing in the wetlands at Duck Cove and up Whites Brook (consultants noted that the shape of the brook channel looks like a tidal stream, and peat is present beneath the surface soil layer, indicating that there was originally salt marsh in these areas). Especially in the narrower reaches, conditions will be similar to those below the dam, where coarse substrate (cobble, boulder) will be watered and dewatered with the tides but without a lot of vegetation due to velocities. Large expanses of mudflats are not predicted.

Projection of water levels (elevation at high tide in light and dark blue and low tide in light blue) without the dam, from Stantec consultants.

The natural upper limit of the tide appears to be Upper Falls, two miles upstream from the Orland Village Dam.

Consultants with Stantec who have been studying the river over the last several years created the following simulated images of the river at high and low tide.

Looking upstream from Narramissic Drive, high tide (simulation by Stantec)

Looking upstream from Narramissic Drive, low tide (simulation by Stantec)

Looking west from Lower Falls Road, high tide (simulation by Stantec)

Looking west from Lower Falls Road, low tide (simulation by Stantec)

Looking upstream from dam site toward Castine Road Bridge, high tide (simulation by Stantec)

Looking upstream from dam site toward Castine Road Bridge, low tide (simulation by Stantec)

Letter to the Editor: Orland Dam should stay

published in the Bangor Daily News

May 12, 2016 

Until the Orland Dam Committee can guarantee it can protect domestic wells and the Narramissic River from mercury and saline contamination and secure a new fresh water source to fight fires, the dam must stay. Luckily, it’s in good condition.

The dam committee should stop wasting town dollars on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s agenda. If it has to study something, how about looking into raising the dam to hold back rising tides and getting the mercury out of the Penobscot River? Poison fish won’t do anyone any good.

In the meantime, the question shouldn’t even be on the June 14 town ballot.

Sharon Thompson
Orland

Bangor Daily News coverage

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/05/05/outdoors/orland-village-dam-removal-may-be-in-near-future/

May 5, 2016

by Aislinn Sarnacki

Orland residents will get a chance to decide the fate of the Orland Village Dam at an upcoming town meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. June 15 in the gymnasium of the Orland Community Center at 21 School House Road in Orland.

They’ll have two options: Keep the dam and be willing to pay for annual maintenance and fish ladder upkeep, or accept funding being offered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service, the Nature Conservancy and other partners to remove the structure.

“Our dam committee isn’t making a recommendation. We just want to present what the alternatives are and the facts are as we’ve learned them,” said John Barlow, chairman of the Orland Dam Committee. “We’ve been studying it now for four years.”

Read the full story from the Bangor Daily News.

A decision for Orland residents

At a townwide vote on June 14, 2016, residents of Orland will elect one of the following two options concerning the town-owned Orland Village Dam:

Option 1: Does the Town wish to keep the Orland Village Dam and pay for associated costs? 

OR

Option 2: Does the Town wish to move toward removal of the Orland Village Dam by working with NOAA Fisheries Service and The Nature Conservancy to acquire available grant funding for dam removal and ancillary costs? 

Voting takes place at the Orland Community Center, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, June 14. 

This website is intended to provide information to help the residents of Orland make this important decision about the future of their village. (See the About page for more background.)

A forum will be held on June 1 at 6 p.m., with presentations by people who have been studying the dam and river and opportunities for residents to ask questions and learn more about the options.

Orland Village Dam at mid-tide.