MAINE PUBLIC • May 25, 2020
Gov. Janet Mills is making a new push to prevent a potential drawdown of East Grand Lake that could leave thousands of camps and residences high and dry. Mills sent a letter last week to the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) presenting a rationale for the agency to drop jurisdiction over what is called the Forest City Dam. Part of a 100-year-old hydropower system, the dam sits partly in the United States and partly in Canada, and it keeps the 16,000-acre international lake at its current levels. The dam's owner, Woodland Pulp and Paper, wants to cede it to someone else or abandon it, saying FERC's licensing requirements are too expensive. FERC has so far balked.