PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 10, 2023
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is required to issue a report soon on Brookfield Power’s plan to facilitate the restoration of salmon to the Kennebec River as its hydro dams are up for review. Brookfield’s fish passage model has not worked, as evidenced by no more than 25 salmon returned to the Kennebec in 2022, compared to some 1,300 returning to the Penobscot River in the same year. Why is there a disparity of returning salmon to the two rivers? Three dams have been removed or bypassed on the Penobscot, while a fourth has been equipped with a state-of-the-art fish passage system. Brookfield’s four dams on the Kennebec block salmon from their spawning grounds. How would you like to have four bank vault doors between you and your honeymoon suite and not know the combinations? Contact your senators and congressional representatives and ask that they reach out to NOAA to base its report on science rather than politics. ~ Eugene McKenna, Bowdoinham