Maine’s supreme court a year ago sided with the Department of Environmental Protection and told an Appleton resident to tear down a dam that had been illegally built, disrupted aquatic life and was flawed in design. For a number of reasons, the dam is still holding back water on a tributary of the St. George River. But rather than use its regulatory muscle to knock it down, the DEP might do better to try to find a compromise in this case.

Charles Woodman of Appleton never should have built the dam and should have listened to state biologists early on in what has become a decade-long melodrama. He didn’t do either. Instead, he completed the dam, lost in courts repeatedly then appealed to property-rights enthusiasts. That turned what should have been a simple disagreement over the use of a stream into a circus over the pond that the dam produced. A rally last year collected $10,000 to help him defray costs for the ordered demolition.

Mr. Woodman says he has asked seven engineers to take on the job of dam removal, but none would do it for a variety of reasons. Some of them may have wanted to avoid the inevitable publicity that would come with dismantling what has become a minor symbol for residents who believe their rights have been drowned by state regulations.

The DEP has several options in this case: it could simply wait while Mr. Woodman hunts further afield for a contractor willing to remove the dam; it could get tough by bringing in an out-of-state firm that doesn’t care about Maine publicity and knock out the dam starting in a few weeks; or it could go back to the dam owner and try to find a way to create a happy ending to this sorry tale.

The first option may take many more months or — who knows? — years; the second is politically unwise; the third has possiblities and is being considered by the DEP now.

A compromise might go something like this. The dam created an environmental harm, most directly to downstream neighbors, whose property rights were substantially ignored in the dam’s defense. Lots of people, including the folks downstream, would like to have a pond on their properties, but lots of people also follow state environmental regulations and don’t bring in the backhoes without the proper permits.

But what if Mr. Woodman were asked, in exchange for keeping the pond, that he share it? That way, the state trades some environmental impact for the benefit of limited public access to the pond. The money raised to remove the dam could be used to upgrade it.

Certainly, this is not the only way to compromise. Mr. Woodman and the DEP may come up with something better. Public access is a revered tradition in Maine, but almost any mutual conclusion is better than the continued conflict this saga has produced.