Aug. 25—WINDHAM — Michael Shaughnessy, walking stick in hand, ambled down the bank toward a stretch of flowing river that has been hidden under a reservoir for more than a century.
He stopped to marvel at the cracks in the dirt and clay on the pond floor that had formed from exposure to summer heat, at the tree stumps left behind from 19th-century logging activity, and at the newly sprouted weeds growing in places where standing water had been not long ago.
This spring, an unexpected problem with one of the many dams along the Presumpscot River led to a massive drawdown of water in the impoundment known as Dundee Pond in Windham. Although the pond disappeared, it unearthed part of the river, and in turn, a window into history.
At first, Shaughnessy, president of the board of Friends of the Presumpscot River, worried about the ecological impact of the sudden drawdown and what it meant for the town, which relies on Dundee Pond as both a gathering place and as a source of summer revenue from entry fees and watercraft rentals.
He still worries about those things, but the more time he spends exploring the area, the more he senses he is experiencing something that hasn’t been seen in 100 years and may not be seen for 100 more.
“It’s a glimpse of what’s underneath the pond, which is really just a wild river,” he said. “It’s like going back in time.”
Now, Shaughnessy is telling anyone who will listen to view the stretch of river before the dam is fixed and water covers it again this fall.
Landis Hudson, executive director of the nonprofit Maine Rivers, who advocates for protecting and restoring the state’s waterways, was among those who recently toured the area with Shaughnessy. She described it as a “fascinating combination of profound ugliness and unexpected beauty.”
“I could not believe what I was looking at,” she said. “It just didn’t seem possible.”
Long before industrialization and before paper and textile mills populated many Maine communities along waterways, the Presumpscot River traveled 26 miles mostly unimpeded from Sebago Lake to Casco Bay.
It was a vital source of sustenance to the Abenaki people who lived in southern Maine prior to colonization. The name Presumpscot actually means “many falls” or “many rough places,” and that was its identity before the dams altered the water’s natural flow.
The first dams came in the 1700s to power paper mills. By the mid-1800s, a canal had been built along the river to help move goods and supplies, although that was soon supplanted by railroads. Then came more dams to harness hydroelectricity. One of those dams created Dundee Pond, an impoundment or reservoir that was later turned into a popular town park and swimming hole.
But the river was still there, hidden beneath the pond.
Now, it’s visible again, for a little while longer.
Rob Sanford, a professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Southern Maine and editor of “River Voices: Perspectives on the Presumpscot River,” said the drained pond seems at first like an alien landscape.
But a closer look reveals history — the handmade canals and the stumps of “wolf trees,” or large solitary trees that were left behind as shady spots for grazing animals,
“To appreciate something, I think it helps to know about it,” he said. “Then it’s sort of easier to see its value. Rivers have been taken for granted.”
Shaughnessy said the new view of the river, which includes water rushing along rocky falls, feels more like something you might see out West, something unspoiled by human interference.
“Our rivers have been dammed for so long, we just don’t know,” he said.
‘LOST SEASON’ AT DUNDEE POND
According to a release from Relevate Power Management, the New York firm that manages the Dundee dam, the water drawdown was caused when one of the two sluice gates — which are used to allow excess water to pass during floods — became stuck in the open position.
Over a period of weeks, the water level of Dundee Pond lowered, exposing the pond floor.
The company has been working for much of the summer to fix the dam and is expected to be finished by the end of August. After that, it will slowly begin refilling the reservoir, which will in turn cover and hide the wild river underneath.
The malfunction wasn’t a surprise, Shaughnessy said. The dam dates back more than 100 years and even with regular maintenance, its life expectancy isn’t limitless.
While the pond is drained, Relevate and its contractors will overhaul other gates at the dam “to minimize the likelihood of other gate-related shutdowns over the coming years,” the firm’s CEO, Matthew Wenger, said in a statement.
Relevate will then refill the pond in consultation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — which oversees hydropower dams — and with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The pond is expected to be back at its normal level by mid-October.
The sudden drawdown of water this spring was a surprise to town officials, said Windham Parks & Recreation Director Linda Brooks.
“It was hard because we didn’t have much notice,” she said.
The recreation area opened Memorial Day weekend but then had to close two weeks later. In a typical summer, as many as 20,000 visitors swim, sunbathe and kayak there.
Brooks said there had been hope that the problem might be fixed by late July, but that didn’t happen.
“We’re calling it the lost season,” she said.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll get compensated for any losses,” she said. “We did submit a claim to our insurance provider, but it was not covered.”
Although the swimming season at Dundee Pond was lost, the sudden change did create short-term opportunities for white water kayaking and even fly-fishing just north of the pond, Shaughnessy said.
However, he is worried about the long-term impact of the sudden loss of water. The mussel and clam population has been decimated, and mussels are important filter feeders that help keep the water clean. Walking from the beach at Dundee Park to the wild river this week, it was impossible to avoid crunching shells.
And no one knows yet the impact on the fish that swim and spawn in the river.
“They should be held accountable,” Shaughnessy said of Relevate.
INCREASED INTEREST IN DAM REMOVAL
Steve Heinz, who pays close attention to dam operations through his work with the nonprofit Maine Council of Trout Unlimited, which advocates for restoring rivers and streams as native fish habitats, said the recent malfunction is the latest in a series of problems.
“I think anybody who cares about the environment would be deeply moved by what’s happened at the Dundee site,” he said. “The impacts were massive. It’s a total disruption of what was there.”
Heinz said if hydroelectric power is going to continue to operate in Maine, it has to do so responsibly, and he doesn’t believe that’s happening.
Even before the Dundee dam malfunction, conversations have been happening more frequently in Maine about removing dams. The mills that needed them are no longer there, and residents are placing more value on recreational opportunities and on protecting habitats that have been disrupted for decades.
A dam at Saccarappa Falls, farther down the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, was removed in 2019 as part of a larger river restoration project. Just this week, residents of Yarmouth heard from federal officials about a proposal to remove two dams on the Royal River. Other dams have remained but have added fish passages that allow species an opportunity to move freely up and down rivers.
At one point, Shaughnessy said, the Presumpscot River had the most dams per mile of any river in the country.
Abenaki tribes saw the dams in the river as an attack on their livelihood, so much so that a tribal leader, Chief Polin, in the 1750s, famously walked to Boston to protest because Maine was still part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Polin later was killed during a conflict with white settlers over the fish passage dispute.
Shaughnessy has a memorial to Polin on his property near the river in Westbrook.
Walking along the river’s edge over the past few weeks has felt both solemn and life-affirming, said Shaughnessy, who calls himself a “river guy.”
For him, it’s an opportunity to imagine what things were like when Indigenous people fished, and animals grazed along the banks. And a chance to wonder whether it might ever look like that again.
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