Balancing Power Production and Fisheries Restoration in the Penobscot River Watershed: Background and Updates from Recent Successes

In 1820 the Penobscot River, Maine’s largest, was dammed effectively blocking passage of what was likely over 10 million fish including 10’s of thousands of Atlantic salmon.  Populations of sea-run fish, once measured in millions, plummeted to a fraction of historic counts. Through an innovative FERC relicensing process, a multiparty agreement was signed in 2004 between the Penobscot Indian Nation, a hydropower company, conservation groups, and state and federal agencies resolving decades of conflict over fisheries and hydropower. By looking at a system of dams the agreement supported increased power generation at six dams while increasing fish passage at five others.  The agreement provided for the acquisition and decommissioning of three large mainstem dams by the Penobscot River Restoration Trust with the recent removal of two lowest-most dams in 2012 and 2013 and the upcoming river-like by-pass around an upstream dam.  These improvements will increase access to an estimated 1,000 miles (1609 km) of habitat upstream. Energy generation is already greater than pre-project levels.    This presentation will summarize the creative problem solving that permitted this approach to balancing energy production with ecological values in the lower Penobscot and report on recent biological responses during the first phase of recovery.