That’s what will happen if Camden Warrant Article 7 on the Montgomery Dam is defeated. This isn’t a wild guess or loose political talk. The current dam is falling apart and leaking into Harbor Park, undermining the seawall. “Rivulets like these,” warns a sign recently posted by the Camden Library Board of Trustees, “form as water escapes Montgomery Dam’s sluiceway, cutting through Harbor Park and washing away soil.”

Another sign explains that leakage – along with higher tides and storm surges – cause ‘the most damage” to the park.

So we can’t just leave the dam alone, not matter what “Vote No” advocates insist. At a minimum, it has to be fixed. Interfluve, the town’s engineering firm, has prepared cost estimates for three alternatives:

1. Repairing the dam and maintaining it for 50 years: $3.2 million. This would be paid entirely by raising local taxes.

2. Modifying it to allow fish passage upriver: $3.6 million. Fish passage qualifies us for federal grants to offset part of the cost. The rest will be covered by us.

3. Taking it out completely: $1.7 million, paid by federal money.

Why we would spend so much to keep the dam? Opponents of Article 7 insist that it’s a vital part of our heritage. Three years ago, they even asked the Maine Historical Preservation Commission to put it on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Commission turned them down, saying that Montgomery Dam doesn’t qualify as a historic structure. Instead, it offered a different alternative: registering the entire Megunticook River as a historic industrial district, but only if fish passage is ensured to the lake. That would include Interfluve’s Option 2: $3.6 million, and more for the upriver dams.

It's Harbor Park, not the Montgomery Dam, that we should be concerned about. The Park is our real historical heritage.

“From the leaking sluiceway to a failing seawall,” the Library Board warns us, “climate change and infrastructure strain are taking a toll” that can’t be put off. Removing the dam will fix part of our problem and let us focus on the rest.

Vote Yes on Article 7.

David Miller lives in Camden