FARMINGTON — The town still has no permit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fix the erosion problem along Sandy River that endangers a section of Whittier Road, Town Manager Richard Davis told selectmen on Tuesday. 

Although they’ll participate in a review of the Whittier Road site at 10:30 a.m. and attend a 1 p.m. meeting Friday, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife is the only agency dragging its feet, Davis said.

The Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Environmental Protection and FEMA have no problem with plans to use bendway weirs,  which help control the velocity and current around a river bend. They are constructed on boulders with a rootwad system on top, he said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials want to use a wood timber system to help create a salmon habitat and a spot for the fish to rest on their journey upstream. They said the wood material plan could be replaced five or six times for the cost of the proposed project, Davis told the board.

“We don’t want to replace it five times. We want to fix it and fix it right,” he said.

The work needs to be done during the low-water period from June 15 to Sept. 15. It’s projected to take about three weeks.

“Not a single salmon would stop at the Whittier Road,” Tom Eastler, professor of geology at the University of Maine at Farmington, said. The reason is because it’s 100 percent sand on top of clay. Salmon need gravel, he said.

“Don’t give in,” Eastler told the board, endorsing the Army Corp of Engineers’ bendway weir system and warning the timber solution would probably fail and take the Whittier Road with it.

Davis said the town’s dissatisfaction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife plan was voiced during a recent conference call with Maine’s congressional leaders.

Along with the permit, the town is seeking a grant from FEMA to help with the $235,000 project, but they also need approval of the plan from the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to get it.

In 2011, tropical storm Irene caused the riverbank to erode and encroached on the road. The town worked to obtain the permit and funding last year, but missed the low-water period for repair. They did hire a consultant to complete a biological assessment as required by FEMA.

When the permit and funding failed to come, the road was posted for weight and closed to one lane of traffic over the winter.

abryant@sunjournal.com

This story was changed to reflect the US Fish and Wildlife preferred plan does not include boulders, only timber. AB

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