MAINE MONITOR • September 23, 2025
The Nature Conservancy on Tuesday announced a landmark investment worth $168 million to purchase and oversee Brookfield Renewable’s four hydroelectric dams on the lower Kennebec River, paving the way for their eventual removal. The sale all but guarantees unfettered access for endangered Atlantic salmon and other seagoing fish from the Gulf of Maine to their historic spawning grounds upstream on the Sandy River for the first time since the Kennebec River was permanently dammed more than a century ago. The four dams are located in and between Waterville and Skowhegan and are the last impediments between the mouth of the Kennebec River and its confluence with the Sandy River near Norridgewock.