\The Town of Camden Select members  announced that they will be meeting soon with the Camden Public Library Board of Trustees to solicit input on their proposed removal of the Montgomery Dam and routing of the Megunticook River onto Harbor Park property. This announcement raises several important issues and questions about public process and public participation in government.

• Will these meetings between members of the Select Board and Town Manager and the Library Trustees be publicly noticed and allow public participation and comment?

• When did the Select Board publicly vote on Montgomery Dam removal and were public hearings noticed and held and input solicited from the town residents for all the alternatives, including repair the dam?

Harbor Park, designed in 1930 by Fredric Law Olmstead, Jr., is a contributing property to the Library and Amphitheater, which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Montgomery Dam, built over 200 years ago, the waterfalls and Harbor Park are integral to the beauty of Camden and are a major tourist attraction. The Library Trustees have an obligation to preserve this treasure that is Harbor Park.

Voters also need to ask the following questions of the Select Board:

• If upstream flooding is the reason to remove the dam, what are the real impacts of lowering the dam? In the 2019 engineering study commissioned by the Town Select Board, it was stated that during a 100-year storm event, removing the dam will only lower the river water level approximately two feet north of the Route 1 bridge.  And Montgomery Dam only affects river level for a total of 500 feet upstream, to approximately Washington Street. The engineering report did not identify any structures or roads that will flood with the dam remaining during a 100-year storm.

• Funds were approved to repair Montgomery Dam previously. The Select Board made a decision not to spend this money and repair the dam. The cost to repair the dam is likely much less than the removal of it and the north retaining wall, trucking away silt and debris and re-routing the river onto Harbor Park.

• Is encouraging fish migration upriver the only reason some Select Board members want to lower the dam? What about the four other dams, two privately owned, along the river? How many fish passages would be required and at what costs would that entail? What are the environmental issues related to the silt from all of these dams? What is the environmental impact on our harbor?

• What will happen to the appearance of the river and the commercial district without a dam and mill pond during low water flows and drought periods? Will it be visually attractive to residents and tourists?

• Removing the dam will alter river flow, change water velocities and scouring patterns and have unknown risks to the structures within and adjacent to the river.

I encourage all Camden residents to educate themselves about these issues and ask for transparency from town government on this issue.

Steve Mischissin lives in Camden