Landis Hudson

Birds, fish and other wildlife will benefit from efforts that are underway in a series of projects along the Sabattus River. These efforts will also clean up environmental hazards, improve public safety, and reduce flood risk for communities around Lisbon and Sabattus.

This summer, vehicles passing through the intersection of Greene and High streets in Sabattus have seen work in progress at the Mill Remnants Dam site. Just downstream, the water level behind the Mill Pond Dam has been lowered in anticipation of removing that dam in 2025. These are two of six dam sites along that Sabattus River where fish passage improvements are taking place, after years of planning and coordination.

Why are the projects happening, and why now?

For generations, factories and mills operated along the Sabattus River, but those businesses are gone now. Left behind are a series of dams along the Sabattus that do not produce power but do create impassible barriers to native migratory fish species. Removing the lower dams and installing an engineered fishway at the Sabattus Lake Outlet (Sleeper Dam) will allow fish species to return. It’s a lot of work, but project partners see benefits that are worth the effort.

Restoration of the Sabattus River is expected to make 2,429 acres of lake and pond habitat, and 75 miles of river and stream habitat accessible to migratory fish species. Of Maine’s 12 native sea run fish species, six were known to return to the Androscoggin and Sabattus rivers before the construction of the dams. These include American eel, American shad, alewife, blueback herring, sea lamprey, and Atlantic salmon, all of which were historically found in the Sabattus River. These six fish species have similar life cycles; each relies on access to freshwater and saltwater during their lives.

Once access is restored to Sabattus Pond, a self-sustaining run of nearly 500,000 adult alewife, a keystone species, is expected to return each year. Known as the “fish that feed all,” alewives are critical in freshwater and saltwater ecosystems. They feed many species of birds, including loons, eagles and osprey, as well as numerous other fish species, bear, raccoons, foxes, whales, haddock and cod. Reconnecting lake and stream habitats to the ocean will add the forage base in the Gulf of Maine.

The Draft Fisheries Management Plan for the Lower Androscoggin River, Little Androscoggin River and Sabattus River was written by state agencies in anticipation of the relicensing of seven nearby hydropower projects. The plan includes a schedule for fish passage at each hydropower facility and calls for fish passage in the Sabattus River as soon as possible. Restoring aquatic connectivity in the Sabattus River provides the largest amount of alewife spawning habitat above the fewest number of hydropower projects.

Work along the Sabattus River has included the removal of the Joliet Dam in 2019. This summer it focused on the Mill Remnants Dam, and next summer partners anticipate the removal of the Mill Pond Dam. The Sleeper Dam will remain in place but receive major upgrades to meet dam safety regulations, but also include construction of a technical fishway to allow fish to make their way safely into and out of the lake.

In Lisbon, the Upper Dam remnants were removed in 2022. Work at the Farwell Dam site has been extensive and will include asbestos removal and remediation of No. 6 oil. Next steps include construction of a nature-like rock ramp fishway at the site. An additional benefit may include reduced flood insurance requirements in Lisbon as maps are updated after completing the Farwell projects.

In addition to Maine Department of Marine Resources, projects partners for the Sabattus River work include the Sabattus Lake Dam Commission, Atlantic Salmon Federation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and now Maine Rivers, a small nonprofit with an office in Yarmouth that recently completed a successful project to restore a historic alewife run to China Lake. Funding has come from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Join us at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at the Sabattus Town Hall to learn more.

Landis Hudson is executive director of Maine Rivers.