AUGUSTA – A longstanding question involving the license for a dam on Flagstaff Lake came to a head Thursday when a state board voided a water-quality certification.

State environmentalists claim the state Board of Environmental Protection’s decision was a victory that upheld the integrity of the state’s water quality standards.

However, Allen Wiley, a representative of Florida Power & Light Energy Maine Hydro LLC, disagreed with the board’s decision and said the Flagstaff Storage Project, which includes an artificial reservoir created by the dam, does meet standards.

At the crux of the unusual decade-old dispute, which pits the federal Environmental Protection Agency against the state Department of Environmental Protection, is the DEP’s interpretation of state water quality law. The DEP compared Flagstaff Lake to an artificial reservoir rather than a Class C natural lake.

But environmentalists and the EPA assert that Flagstaff Lake is a natural lake made bigger by an impoundment, a position buttressed by the BEP.

The BEP voted 6-1 Thursday to overturn the state’s certification. The board directed the department to draft an order denying the water quality certification, board representative Terry Hanson said Friday.

Florida Light & Power claims the lake should not be held to standards of a natural lake because it is an artificial reservoir.

The Flagstaff Storage Project consists of Long Falls Dam and the Flagstaff Lake reservoir fed by the Dead River in several unorganized territories and the town of Eustis.

FPL Energy received state water-quality certification Nov. 14, 2003, and was relicensed on March 30, 2004, two days before the state BEP held an appeal hearing on the water-quality certification issued by the DEP.

The DEP had determined that the project had met the state’s water quality standards, said representative Dana Murch.

“The department believed it was legally right,” Murch said.

The certification was granted with a number of conditions, including limiting the drawdown of Flagstaff Lake, which is formed by the dam, to 4.5 feet below full pond between June 1 and Aug. 31 and not to exceed 24 feet from full pond elevation during winter months. The old license allowed a maximum drawdown of 36 feet, Murch said.

The department determined that Flagstaff Lake is an artificial reservoir with a surface area of 17,950 acres when full. The department also determined that, at maximum drawdown of 36 feet below full pond, the remaining water body has a surface area of about 137 acres.

But the BEP, the state Attorney General’s Office, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Maine Rivers, Trout Unlimited, the Appalachian Mountain Club, Natural Resources Council of Maine and the town of Eustis disagreed with the state certification.

The conservationists as a group, and the town filed separate appeals.

The town is concerned about the economic impact of recreational use and property value if the lake is drawn down during summer months, selectmen’s Chairman Jay Wyman said.

Naomi Schalit, executive director of Maine Rivers, said that it wasn’t the drawdowns so much that concerned them, it was that DEP stretched the state’s water quality standards to fit the situation.

The certificate as approved allowed reductions in water level that abandoned longstanding interpretation’s of the state’s water quality standards and risked establishing a dangerous legal precedent, Schalit said.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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