Four Hancock County towns voted Tuesday to lay the groundwork for taking ownership of two local dams that the current owner of a defunct paper mill site wants to abandon.
A subsidiary of the salvage company that in 2014 bought the dams along with of Bucksport’s shuttered Verso Paper mill, American Iron and Metal, is petitioning the state to let it abandon three dams that were built to supply the mill and have contained water levels for a century.
AIM’s proposal alarmed local officials and residents, who say the dams and the lakes created by them are important economic assets for the towns.
In response, Orland, Blue Hill, Surry and Penobscot on Tuesday approved plans that will create quasi-municipal management districts for the dams and the bodies of water the dams support, Alamoosook Lake and Toddy Pond. Alamoosook Lake lies entirely within Orland, while all four towns have waterfront property owners on Toddy Pond.
Voters in Orland supported creating both districts. The proposal for Alamoosook Lake passed with a 886-198 vote, while the proposal for Toddy Pond was adopted with a 910-178 vote.
As for the other towns on Toddy Pond, Blue Hill residents supported creating that district in a 1,159-183 vote. Surry followed suit by passing the proposal with a 668-143 tally, while Penobscot voters approved it 492-69.
As proposed, the districts will be run by elected trustees split equally between town representatives and waterfront property owners, with costs also halved between the two groups. Waterfront owners would pay twice: they would get billed separately to cover half of a dam’s operating costs, and then pay a smaller general taxpayer share though their property tax bills to help fund the other half of the costs.
Studies commissioned by the group project that local ownership will save money in the long term and give towns say over what happens to them.
If the dams are abandoned, lake levels are projected to drop about eight feet, taking millions of dollars in tourism revenue and property values that the area has come to depend on economically.
This is the first time Maine’s dam abandonment law has been tested to this extent, meaning the fate of the two dams could set a precedent for other towns as hundreds of dams age around the state.
A third dam owned by AIM at Silver Lake in Bucksport could also be abandoned by the scrap metal company, but no proposal for taking over ownership of that dam was on Bucksport’s ballot Tuesday.