After debating whether the Head Tide Dam proposal would be ready for a townwide vote, the Alna Board of Selectmen voted Wednesday, Jan. 18 to add the proposal to the warrant for the annual town meeting in March, provided it receives the town attorney’s legal blessing.
The proposal to be sent to town attorney David Soule for legal review has undergone minor revisions since the Head Tide Dam Committee’s unanimous recommendation for the dam in December.
In response to selectmen’s feedback, the current proposal would leave some of the concrete on the dam’s right abutment in place, so the appearance of the dam would remain the same, said Andrew Goode, Atlantic Salmon Federation’s vice president of U.S. operations.
The December proposal, which involves removing the right abutment and replacing it with a new abutment with enhanced safety and recreational features, was scaled back. The revisions to the proposal change the percentage of the dam to be removed from about 11 percent to about 8 percent, Goode said.
An earlier proposal that involved 10 percent removal of the dam was reviewed by Soule, who determined it did not violate the deed restriction.
The Head Tide Dam was deeded to Alna by its previous owner, Allan Jewett, with the stipulation that it not be destroyed.
For the past two years, the Atlantic Salmon Federation has worked with Alna to develop a proposal to modify the Head Tide Dam to improve fish passage. The work of the initial committee that formed to explore improving fish passage was derailed by suspicions that the committee’s intention was to remove the dam.
A smaller committee was formed to develop a proposal that would meet the desired outcomes in the four focus areas established by the larger Head Tide Dam committee – safety, fisheries, recreation, and history.
With the removal and replacement of the right abutment accomplishing all desired outcomes, the committee unanimously recommended it in December.
However, suspicion is still lingering in the community about the proposal to modify the dam, selectmen said at their previous meeting, when they questioned whether the vote would be successful if it were put to the town in March.
The dam’s abutting property owner, Ron Colby, and Alna’s alewife harvester, David Sutter, attended the previous selectmen’s meeting to express their displeasure with the process and the proposal. Sutter questioned the validity of the scientific data about fish passage, saying the current openings in the dam are sufficient to enable the passage of Atlantic salmon.
Colby was under the impression the modifications to the dam required a retaining wall on his property. Since the Jan. 4 selectmen’s meeting, representatives from the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the engineering firm Inter-Fluve, members of the Head Tide Dam Committee, selectmen, and Sutter and Colby have met to review the details of the proposal.
In addition to replacing the abutment, the proposal calls for stabilizing some of the mill remnants that remain on the bank of the river to preserve the history of the mill, Goode said.
One of the first actions of the committee was to survey the property lines so there would be no impact to abutting property owners, Goode said.
With several mill remnants on Colby’s downstream property, the Atlantic Salmon Federation extended an offer to Colby to stabilize the structures on his property as well, Goode said.
“If he’s interested in learning about the work on the town property, we’d be happy to extend anything that might benefit his property,” Goode said. The work is not required, Goode said, as Colby previously may have thought.
Data related to water flows, velocity, and fish passage were reviewed with Sutter, Goode said. Fish are currently able to pass through the dam, but when water flows are high, there is a delay in their passage, he said.
Replacement of the right abutment would eliminate the delays in fish passage, which would benefit river herring and American shad the most, Goode said.
“It’s probably cliche to say this, but this is a win-win,” Goode said.
Selectmen voted, contingent on the legal review, to place the current proposal on the warrant with their recommendation to approve it. Whether the proposal will pass is up to the town, selectmen said.
