As the water level drops on a coastal Maine pond residents question fish hatchery 1

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • September 18, 2026

Dianne O’Donnell has seen Craig Pond’s water level get unusually low before in the 77 summers she’s spent there, but this year she’s especially worried. It is a drought year, but the rest of the watershed hasn’t shown such dramatic decreases — and unlike Craig Pond, none of those lakes and ponds have recently become the sole water source for a federal fish hatchery producing the eggs of more than 5 million endangered Atlantic salmon a year. It’s another example in Maine of property owners around a body of water raising concerns about how water levels are managed as infrastructure ages and uses change. Numerous dams in the watershed that were built to supply papermaking in Bucksport are also aging as an industrial owner seeks to abandon some of them, and low water levels have also drawn concern at Graham Lake in Ellsworth, where a dam’s federal permit has expired and some are calling for its removal.