Sappi offers help in dam removal study
Westbook-based Sappi Fine Paper says it will provide the city engineering resources and expertise in studying the potential removal of the company's hydroelectric dam at the Presumpscot River's Saccarappa Falls.
The decision, which the company announced Wednesday in a press release, comes after the city filed a grant application with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for funds to support a study of how removing the dam would impact fish passage and the aesthetic appeal of the area.
A 2009 order from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife requires the company to build a fish passage at its Saccarappa Falls site, which is the company's second-most downriver dam.
The Portand Press Herald reported that the company began construction in 2011 on a fishway at its most downriver dam, a project slated for completion this spring.
Following completion of that dam, the company has two years to create a fishway at the Saccarappa Falls dam and must eventually make similar additions to four other dams beyond that.
The announcement comes as city officials continue to pursue projects near the river, which Mayor Coleen Hilton called the "key to [Westbrook's] environmental and economic revitalization" in a prepared statement.
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