Penobscot dams to be removed
The architects of an ambitious effort to buy dams along the Penobscot River to restore fisheries there will announce a major step forward today.
The Penobscot River Restoration Trust is expected to announce this morning at a press conference in Old Town that it has raised $25 million in public and private funds to purchase the Veazie, Great Works and Howland dams from Pennsylvania-based PPL Corp. Once permitting is complete, the trust will remove the Great Works and Veazie dams and create a fish bypass around the Howland dam, according to a press release from the trust. The project will allow migratory fish like river herring, Atlantic salmon and American shad to return to the largest river in Maine.
After the dams are removed PPL will continue to generate the same amount of hydropower from the river by increasing power generation at five or six of its other dams. Representatives from PPL told Mainebiz this morning that the trust will agree to "strongly support" efforts to generate energy at those dams.
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