Fort Halifax Dam deal rejected (dam removal, Maine)

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/4044480.html

WINSLOW -- A coalition of conservation and fishery groups has rejected a Boston-based company's plan to buy and operate Fort Halifax Dam, a decision that could end any hope of preventing the dam's removal.

Daniel W. Marra, president of Kennebec Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, said Wednesday that the Kennebec Coalition sees the proposal by Essex Hydro Associates as too conceptual to bear serious evaluation and nearly certain to bring further delays to a sea-run fish passage goal already behind schedule.

"There seems to be a lack of diligence so far," Marra said, "in coming forth with the level of detail necessary to allow other parties to assess whether this is a realistic proposal."

Essex Hydro's plan for Fort Halifax cannot happen without the Kennebec Coalition's blessings -- a requirement that dam owner FPL Energy has stated publicly.

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http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/4043977.html

FREEDOM -- The Portland company hoping to erect three electricity-generating wind turbines on Beaver Ridge has reapplied for a town permit.

This time, without a commercial development ordinance posing a stumbling block, the project appears on the fast-track to fruition.

"I never lost hope, I guess," said Andy Price, project manager for Competitive Energy Services, which hopes to have the turbines in place as early as the fall of 2008. "The town has been very supportive. Eventually, if the town wants it, it will happen."

The new application, the third submitted by Competitive Energy for the $10 million project, essentially turns back the clock more than a year to the company's original application.

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Hydro is by far the most practical form of "renewable" energy, because it's the most energy dense and it's constant. A major hydro plant can equal a nuclear reactor for power output, something no other "renewable" power technology can say. But there's a limit to how many dams we can build, and for every one that we reject or blow up, it's that much less clean energy.

The wind farm in Freedom ME and the three large wind farms in permit review in western and eastern Maine in will more than make up for the generating capacity lost by the removal of this small dam (and the Edwards dam 17 miles downstream on the Kennebec).

Hundreds of thousands of alewives and other river herring congregate just below the Fort Halifax dam.

and lots of (big scary) stripers too :)

When the Sebasticook watershed opens up, the spring migration of these fish is going to be biblical in proportion.

:crazy: Someone shoulda rewritten that first sentence.