Towns want to take over Bucksport-area dams to avoid ‘catastrophe’

Public information meetings offered on managing state-owned manmade dams with beaver impacts

MONTPELIER — Two public information meetings will be held by the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) this April to discuss how upcoming dam safety rules may affect the management of state-owned, manmade dams that have been impacted by beavers.

Towns want to take over Bucksport-area dams to avoid ‘catastrophe’

Four towns in western Hancock County say they are on a tight timeline to find a way to take over two dams built decades ago to supply the defunct Bucksport paper mill. The salvage company that bought the former mill is asking the state to let it abandon the dams, potentially releasing the water from them, using a 30-year-old Maine law that’s never been tested. Now, representatives from Blue Hill, Orland, Penobscot and Surry want to form two quas…