Fort Halifax Dam: Ruling favors removal (Maine)

[jpak]

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/4162570.html

WINSLOW -- A Maine Supreme Judicial Court decision Tuesday might have eliminated the last legal hurdle to removal of the Fort Halifax Dam.

The court, in a case argued Feb. 13, upheld a decision in Kennebec Superior Court that the Department of Environmental Protection acted properly in issuing a permit to allow the removal of the hydroelectric facility on the Sebasticook River -- a decision subsequently supported by the Board of Environmental Protection.

Save Our Sebasticook (SOS), a group led by Rep. Kenneth Fletcher, R-Winslow, a landowner on the Fort Halifax impoundment, is the party that contested the DEP and BEP decisions at the Superior and Supreme court level.

In its decision, the Supreme Judicial Court wrote: "SOS contends that the Board did not comply with the (Maine Waterway Development and Conservation Act) because it failed to perform a balancing test and make appropriate findings, and because FPL Energy failed to demonstrate compliance with applicable water quality laws. We disagree and affirm the judgment."

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edit: this will open up the third largest watershed in Maine. In terms of national river restoration projects, this is hugh!!111...

http://www.maine.gov/dmr/rm/stockenhancement/sebasticookfishproject/sebasticookfishproject.htm

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Full restoration of the Sebasticook River will eventually provide access to approximately 19,000 surface acres of lake habitat, resulting in the potential production of 4.5 million alewives. American shad spawning and nursery habitat area (~1,400 acres) could provide a production potential of about 133,000 adult shad in the Sebasticook River.

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