No one is disputing beautiful falls.  The issue: keep the old dam with flooding risk and ongoing cost to us as taxpayers or return to nature’s falls which will be a version of the beauty seen by those who first sailed or paddled into the harbor.  Let’s restore a natural waterfall.

Read the July 2021 Inter-fluve report. Thorough, factual, lengthy.  If too much to read, digest the executive summary and the chart on page 179 summarizing pros and cons for all the options for our river. Ask yourself is the old dam worth the increasing risk of flooding due to climate weirding? Think Tennessee and Germany.  Is the old dam worth our tax dollars paying town staff to check the dam every hour during heavy rain and do routine maintenance and inspection?  

What if it is a dry year?  Will there be no waterfall?  Maine Department of Environmental Protection requires a minimum water flow from dams, hence, our Seabright and the lake dams will assure water will always fall to the ocean.  There would be a waterfall without the dam.

Educate yourself.  Ask questions. Keep an open mind. Help others do the same. Fend off emotional words such as “destroying the dam” which some are trying to seed in others. 

The inter-fluve report is on the town website plus more:

https://cms8.revize.com/revize/camdenme/FeasibilityStudy_MegunticookRiver_20210731_Final.pdf

Stephanie Smith lives in Camden