Salmon fishermen speak out against Bangor Hydro’s Basin Mills project

Speaker after speaker denounced the proposed Basin Mills hydroelectric project at public hearings Thursday in Bangor.

“The ratepayers will pay through the eyelids for energy that goes out of state,” said Bill Ellison, who caught the first salmon of the 1989 fishing season. “Greed will destroy something absolutely irreplaceable in the United States, not only in the state of Maine.”

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. has asked the Maine Public Utilities Commission to grant it a “certificate of public convenience and necessity,” just one of many regulatory hurdles that the utility must clear before the $150 million project becomes a reality.

In reality, the Basin Mills project consists of four separate developments along the Penobscot River, including:

The construction of a new, 18-foot-high, 1,650-foot-long dam across the river just below its confluences with the Stillwater River in Orono;

The dismantling of an existing power house on the Stillwater in Orono;

The construction of a third power-generating station on the Eddington side of the Veazie dam;

And the addition of a generating unit in the existing power house at the Milford dam.

As part of its review process, the PUC conducted two public hearings on the proposal Thursday in the City Council chambers. Most of the 45 people who attended the afternoon session were salmon fishermen or representatives of salmon clubs or environmental groups. None of them voiced support for Basin Mills.

Don Shields of Bangor, head of the Penobscot River Coalition, called the Penobscot the foremost salmon restoration river in the country.

“It’s a national treasure and part of our heritage,” he said in opposing the Orono and Veazie components of the proposal. Shields said he was not against the utility’s plans for the Milford dam, however.

Shields raised two points that were repeated again and again by other speakers: the Basin Mills project would have an unacceptable impact on the salmon restoration effort, and Bangor Hydro has failed to adequately explore the opportunities presented by energy conservation programs.

Lou Horvath, vice president of the Veazie Salmon Club, asked why the utility could not achieve its goals of increased water power simply by replacing its existing generating units with newer, more efficient equipment.

After the afternoon hearing, a spokesman for Bangor Hydro defended the Basin Mills proposal.

“It’s easy for those who are opposed to make emotion-charged generalities with no factual basis,” said William Cohen. “We firmly believe Basin Mills is not a `power or salmon’ project. … Salmon can co-exist and we’ve got 10 volumes of data to back up our positions on the issues.”

The utility looks to conservation programs to provide 10 percent of the additional energy it will need by the end of the century, according to Cohen. But it believes that improperly-designed programs can lead to some customers subsidizing the benefits enjoyed by others.

Even with conservation, Bangor Hydro must find additional sources of power, said Cohen.

“The least-cost source with the least environmental impact is Basin Mills,” he said.

An unrelated proposal to increase Bangor Hydro rates by an average of 7.33 percent next year drew little public comment. Ilze Petersons, regional director of the Displaced Homemakers Program in Bangor, said many working women already are unable to afford food, shelter and electricity.

“They can’t absorb this rate increase,” said Petersons.