LITCHFIELD – A floating excavator tore apart a football-field-sized floating island Friday that was threatening to flood Route 126.

The island was a mass of peat, soil, bushes and roots that appeared to have broken off from alongside the Cobbosseecontee Stream, according to Herb Thomson of the Maine Department of Transportation.

State crews made an impromptu barge, lashing two floats together to hold a road excavator. The barge slowly began ripping the mass of vegetation apart, letting pieces float downstream, where they were plucked from the stream by a crane and trucked away.

“We wouldn’t normally become involved in something like this, but it did pose a serious threat to one of our transportation facilities,” Thomson said. State officials feared that high water in the stream would swamp Route 126 where it crosses the stream.

“It was more or less made of what you find floating in Maine’s ponds, essentially a precursor to a peat bog,” he said. He thinks recent rains swelled the stream, floating the bog up until it broke its roots. That let it float free and continue downstream.

“We were worried that if we had another four or five inches of rain, it could become a real problem,” he said.

The pieces removed from the river were taken to a local farm and ground up. They’ll be used as mulch fertilizer.

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