Ice buildup in river has some worried

ABBOT – The information Charlie Runnels received in a three-hour workshop on ice monitoring last week reinforced his belief that something bad will happen when the spring thaw arrives.

Runnels, whose hayfields bordering the Piscataquis River in Abbot are filled with large, snow-covered, blue ice chunks, worries that conditions are in place for destruction along the river.

He and other local people say an unusual warm, rainy spell in December that was followed by a cold snap has created a situation that bears watching.

How to do that monitoring was the subject of a workshop Friday sponsored by the Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency and conducted by Kate White, a research hydraulic engineer with the Ice Engineering Research Division of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, or CRREL, in Hanover, N.H.

White’s explanation of the various kinds of ice, its effects on the environment and possible solutions was what Runnels and several state and local officials came to hear.

“It confirms my opinion that it’s going to be bad from here to Guilford,” Runnels said at the workshop’s conclusion. “It’s going to be a problem how and when it melts.”

Bob Wilson, Piscataquis County’s emergency management director, said Friday that if the region gets a warm, wet spring on top of what’s in place, it guarantees problems for the region. He called the stream and flow gauges in place on the Piscataquis River, Kingsbury Stream and at Medford “valuable tools” in determining problems early.

Also expressing his concern about the present river and ice conditions was Art Cleaves, state emergency management agency director. “I was real concerned about the looks of the river,” he said after the meeting. Cleaves said there is a lot more snow in the woods this year, and the rivers are full. “I’m worried if there’s a quick thaw they’ll be trouble.”

While the large chunks of ice bordering the riverbanks are common in early spring, it’s fairly unusual to have the buildup of ice start in December. Runnels and others worry that there will be double the ice and water when spring thaw arrives, causing the potential of flooding and ice damage.

It’s this potential, along with the fact that communities and businesses were heavily damaged by floodwaters in 1987, that’s caused one legislator to press forward for a long-term solution.

Rep. Sharon Libby-Jones, D-Greenville, told the Bangor Daily News on Friday that she is requesting funds to allow CRREL to do a long-term study of the ice conditions on the Piscataquis River. “The problem needs to be addressed long term,” she said, and a solution might be to dredge the river.

Not everyone agrees that the ice poses a problem, however.

“I don’t remember an ice jam ever causing any trouble on this river,” Guilford Town Manager Robert Littlefield said Friday. Ice never had anything to do with the flood of ’87 – it was heavy rain and melting snow that caused the problem, he said.

But there have been a number of ice jams that have caused trouble in the state, according to White. CRREL has 483 ice jams in Maine listed in its database, starting from 1780. The jams involved 72 rivers in Maine, 59 of which occurred on the St. John River and 54 on the Aroostook River. Of those ice jams, 16 percent occurred in January, 18 percent in February and 24 percent in March, White said.

Participants were told that the two basic kinds of ice found in Maine were frazil ice, a fine-grained ice that appears like slush and is most predominant in rivers, and columnar ice, which is block ice. It’s that columnar ice that rings the river side of Runnel’s fields.

The breakup of ice jams is done either thermally, when long hours of direct sunlight melt the ice, or by using mechanical means, according to the ice specialist.

Monitoring of the ice conditions ahead of time is a must and can be done using trained observers and or by implanting motion detectors in the ice, White said. Officials should know where ice jam problems are before an evacuation, and these areas include sharp bends, confluences and constrictions in the rivers and streams. And they should monitor the conditions, including the weather, before, during and after the break-up.

“The government cannot come in and solve a problem without a dollar benefit from their action,” White said.

In order to provide some relief, White said, there are some advance measures that can be taken and some permanent steps.

Participants were told that these could include flood protection by reducing the ice supply, drilling holes in the ice to allow more sunlight in, diverting the ice and increasing the water’s ability to move downstream by removing obstacles by blasting, although liability must be considered on the latter.

Cleaves said after the meeting that he would consider all of the solutions, including dredging the river to prevent problems in future years. “I’m going to look at all the possibilities,” he said.