After a decade of pre-fight controversy, the lengthy hearing and permitting process for the Basin Mills dam project was launched formally this week by the Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. Ten years of grinding debate has worn the rough edges off the project, and has enhanced Basin Mills’ general public appeal if not its prospects in the prolonged period of debate that lies ahead:

Due in part to the persistent criticism from Atlantic salmon organizations and environmental groups, Bangor Hydro has improved its corporate approach and attitude toward some of the negative environmental aspects of the project, and has refined the design of the dam.

Specifically, the project of 10 years ago was comparatively unsophisticated regarding the movement of Atlantic salmon, an anadromous fish that can suffer mortality going up or downriver. Original designs did not include fishways and did not adequately take into account the project’s impact on young salmon moving downstream. Today’s project includes fishways and also provides for enhanced downstream passage.

The company’s proposal to mitigate any damage to the Atlantic salmon restoration effort is sincere and responsible. In addition to structural changes in the project to accommodate the fish, the company has said it would be willing to accept requirements that it stock salmon for the life of the project, well into the next century, to mitigate any losses to the fish stock incurred by the dam.

Given the rising tempo in the debate over greenhouse gases, ozone and the consequences of continued reliance on fossil fuels to generate electrical energy and the incredibly steep cost of new nuclear power and the unknown expense of disposing of nuclear waste, the arguments for this hydroelectric project’s annual output of 272 million kilowatts of electricity are very convincing in 1990.

The public tragedy in this debate is the continued intransigence of the salmon and environmental lobbies that refuse to consider any compromise on this project and have consequently transformed what could have been a limited regional debate over fish and power into an all-out, no-quarter proxy war waged by major national interests.

The Sierra Club, American Rivers Association, Atlantic Salmon Federation and other national, state and local organizations have lined up to block the three-phase $140-million dam project, which involves the decommissioning of an old power plant in Orono, upgrading and increasing the energy output at Veazie, and constructing the centerpiece of the project, a new 38-megawatt dam at Basin Mills on the Penobscot River between Bradley and Orono.

For the rest of society, this project represents the clean production of electricity from a renewable source, nearly doubling a Maine power company’s hydroelectric capacity, on a river that has a history of sucessfully mixing uses: The Penobscot is a major industrial river that offers an unusual recreational opportunity in its Atlantic salmon fishery.

The two co-exist today, and there is is no reason why that realtionship cannot continue. The region can have more hydroelectric power, and more salmon in the future. Stocking programs can continue, the Bangor Dam could be removed, the possibilities are impressive for fish, the public and for fishermen if the project is approached in a spirit of cooperation.

Instead, the debate is taking on an increasingly bitter and destructive edge, even as the utility moves toward compromise.

Those who oppose the dam will never learn to like it, but they could be honest with themselves on a couple of points:

Even without Basin Mills, there is very little likelihood that the Penobscot drainage ever will support a native Atlantic salmon population that will provide a strong, natural run of fish. Too much upsteam habitat has been altered or destroyed. There is nothing wrong with a continuing, aggressive stocking program.

The opportunities for a compromise in this issue that best will suit the fish, fishermen, Maine consumers and the utility, are at the local and regional level.

When this issue heads for Washington, Maine salmon fishermen and environmentalists will find their lines tangled in the nets of far larger national entities pursuing their own agendas.

In the arena of national politics, there may be no winner in this contest from Maine.