FERC UPHOLDS NEED FOR FISHWAYS
ON PRESUMPSCOT RIVER
In an Order issued January 29, 2004, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) denied an appeal by the SAPPI corporation of nearly all of the environmental
protections required at five of the company's dams on the Presumpscot River.
The required environmental protections include construction of up and downstream
fishways for Atlantic salmon, American shad, trout, river herring and eels;
minimum flows to prevent violations of state dissolved oxygen standards;
and turbine shutdowns at night during the fall to prevent the killing of
adult eels migrating to the ocean.
In their lengthy decision, the FERC commissioners wrote:
"We will not revise or remove the requirements to which Warren (SAPPI)
objects. Most of the requirements have their origins in mandatory conditions
that the Commission lacks authority to reject, while others were recommended
by the Commission staff to protect or enhance resources.
" The Commission Orders:
(a) The request for rehearing filed October 31, 2003 by the S.D. Warren
Company of the orders issued by the Commission in these proceedings on October
2, 2003, is denied."
It is not known if SAPPI will appeal this decision to the United States
Court of Appeals, its last legal resort to avoid allowing native fish such
as Atlantic salmon to migrate past its dam and return to their home in the
Presumpscot River.
The FERC denial of SAPPI's appeal culminates an intensive five-year effort
by Friends of Sebago Lake, Friends of the Presumpscot River, American Rivers,
the Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited, the Maine Council of the Atlantic
Salmon Federation and federal and state fisheries to force the SAPPI corporation
to allow native fish to pass its hydro-electric dams on the Presumpscot
River. These dams have stopped all fish migration in the river for more
than a century.
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