Dam, salmon preservation compatible

FRANKFORT – Designation of the Frankfort Dam as a National Historic Place should have no bearing on the proposal to tear down the West Winterport Dam eight miles upstream in a bid to restore a run of wild Atlantic salmon, a conservation group’s lawyer says. A lawyer fighting the dam’s removal thinks otherwise.

Bill Townsend, president of Facilitators Improving Salmonid Habitat, or FISH, a conservation group working to remove the West Winterport Dam, said preservation of Frankfort Dam at the mouth of the Marsh Stream was an entirely separate issue from the removal of the West Winterport Dam upstream.

“I don’t think it will mean anything as far as the West Winterport Dam” goes, Townsend said Wednesday. “When it comes to restoration of fish in the stream it will be something to take into consideration, but it will not affect our proposal.”

FISH wants to remove the dam on the Marsh Stream in order to restore the waterway to its natural state and create a habitat for spawning species such as Atlantic salmon, alewives and herring. The towns of Winterport and Frankfort want to preserve the dam for fire protection, flood control and recreation. The towns and FISH are locked in a legal battle over the dam removal matter and the case should be heard in Waldo County Superior Court this summer.

Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, announced this week that the downstream Frankfort Dam had been entered into the National Register of Historic Places as a site “worthy of preservation and protection as part of the nation’s cultural heritage.”

The Frankfort Dam is a 250-foot-long cut granite step dam that was built in 1904 of granite quarried from nearby Mount Waldo. It is about 100 feet south of Route 1A in Frankfort village and forms a small containment known as Mill Pond or Pierces Pond.

The dam was listed in the National Register for its association with the Mount Waldo Granite Co. and as a remnant of the logging and granite industries that provided the economic underpinnings of Frankfort for more than 100 years. As a historic place, the dam requires that care be taken to preserve it and to prevent the structure from being altered in any manner that would detract from its historical significance. “If there are changes proposed, whether it be a new fish passage and design for that structure, we would hope it would be done in a matter that would be comparable to the structure,” Kirk Mohney of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission said Thursday. “Clearly there are aspects of that structure that contribute to its historic character. We would hope that something could be done that would minimize the impact.”

The dam is owned by the town of Frankfort and is being operated as a hydroelectric dam by a private company from Pittsfield. The dam has an active fish passage device, though environment groups have criticized the effectiveness of its ability to move spawning species over the dam. Townsend said that improving fish passage at the dam would have to be addressed.

Still, he said, “I think that getting proper fish passage in that location is not going to be affected by this designation.”

Andrew Goode, director of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, said current conditions at the Frankfort Dam pose a problem for spawning fish. He said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been pressing the town and dam’s operators to make improvements to the fish passage system. He said improved fish passage, in combination with the removal of the West Winterport Dam, would improve miles of salmon habitat along Marsh Stream.

“This historic preservation designation does not preclude them from improving fish passage,” Goode said Thursday.

Charles Gilbert, the Bangor lawyer retained by the towns to challenge the FISH proposal, suggested that preservation of the Frankfort Dam “kind of defeats the purpose” of the attempts to restore Atlantic salmon and other species to the upper reaches of Marsh Stream.

“To the extent that suggesting that tearing down the upper dam is going to lead the way to improving salmon habitat with this dam standing at the mouth of Marsh Stream, I have doubts,” Gilbert said Wednesday. “Notwithstanding the fish ladder, no one’s seen any salmon in this river in our lifetime. … If, as a practical matter, the real goal is to increase salmon habitat, this kind of defeats the purpose. I think it is going to make restoring salmon eight miles upstream somewhat problematical.”