MAINE MONITOR • January 31, 2025
A coalition of lawmakers in Hancock County are working on a slate of bills that could allow Maine towns to band together and take ownership of abandoned dams. The timing of the legislation is pertinent. The owner of the former Verso Paper Mill in Bucksport, AIM Development USA, is in the process of forfeiting ownership of three dams in the Bucksport area, where hundreds of residents reside on the dams’ lakes and pond. If the Maine Department of Environmental Protection allows AIM to carry out forfeiture, it would result in the supervised dewatering of Toddy Pond, Silver Lake and Alamoosook Lake, turning lake water into mudflats, depriving Bucksport of its drinking water source and threatening the operations of a gas-fired power plant.