BDN: Calls to remove Ellsworth dam grow after state issues 2nd water quality denial
May 13, 2026
Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Excerpt from Bangor Daily News (May 12, 2026):
Calls to remove an Ellsworth dam are mounting after the state signaled it would deny a water quality permit for the second time, renewing questions about the future of the Union River dams.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has issued a draft denial to Black Bear Hydro Partners — a subsidiary of Brookfield Renewable that owns the Union River dam and the upstream Graham Lake dam — for its second water quality certification application, required for its federal relicensing effort.
Black Bear Hydro was denied its last water quality certification in 2020, though the dams continue to operate on a temporary license.
While a water quality certification is needed to relicense both dams, local environmental group Downeast Salmon Federation has specifically proposed removing the lower Union River dam in central Ellsworth.
Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation, said Brookfield “remains entirely disingenuous” and is “playing the clock to dodge its responsibilities to produce a serious license application” that would end the “horrific fish kills and mudflows that they create.”
The federation has advocated for the removal of the Union River dam, which impounds Leonard Lake, though they believe the Graham Lake dam should be preserved, provided Graham Lake levels are stabilized and a fishway is installed, according to Shaw.
Shaw said the most plausible solution would be to form a quasi-governmental watershed district, like those recently organized to inherit ownership of dams at Toddy Pond and Alamoosook Lake.