MAINE PUBLIC • February 28, 2022
A bill that would change the state's water quality rules is pitting the Maine Senate's top Democrat against the administration of Gov. Janet Mills in a dispute over a dam, a mill that relies on it, and endangered Atlantic salmon. Senate President Troy Jackson, an Allagash Democrat, told members of the Legislature's natural resources committee that state regulators are setting standards for protecting Kennebec River ecosystems so high that they could force the removal of the Shawmut dam and others — or at the least require installation of costly fishways. And that, he says, could force the shutdown of a SAPPI mill in Somerset that gets its water supply from an impoundment upstream of the dam. The DEP opposes the bill. An agency official says it's bad policy to give up state authority over ecosystem management for the 30-50 year period of a federal dam license, and the measure may violate the state constitution.