Media Advisory ** Media Advisory ** Media Advisory

Office of the Secretary

For immediate release: June 30, 1999

Contact: Jamie Workman (202) 208-6416
or Elaine Tremble (207) 866-7241

BABBITT TOURS FOUR DAM REMOVAL PROJECTS IN MAINE
Hails comprehensive partnership that built consensus at the local level

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt joins Maine Governor Angus King and other public and private officials at the landmark breaching of the 160-year-old Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine this Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m. July 1, 1999.

After the main event, he will visit several smaller dam removal projects one hour away on the Souadabscook River southwest of Bangor, ME. There he will witness one success story -- spawning salmon, alewife and striped bass upstream from Grist Mill Dam, an obsolete hydrodam removed last October. After helping with river restoration, he'll take part in one of two other dam removal works-in-progress, breaching Paper Mill Road Dam, where he will wield a sledgehammer or jackhammer to help open passage for anadromous fish.

"Edwards is an historic tremor, but there are dozens of aftershocks rippling out across the country," said Babbitt. "With 75,000 aging dams nationwide, local communities from Bangor on one coast to Ventura County on the other are making tough new decisions over what they value from their rivers. Each dam leads to lively debates and consensus-building solutions like these. When it comes to native wild fish and river restoration, states like Maine are the cutting edge 'laboratories of democracy.' I've come here to listen, learn and help out where I can."

Directions to Grist Mill site: Get back on Interstate 95, drive northeast roughly 1 hour five minutes to Hampden-Hermon Exit. Take it. At first traffic light (roughly two miles) go through light for less than 1 mile. At stop sign, intersects Route 1a, turn right. Dam is on the right, pull into parking lot. Paper Mill Road Dam is roughly 2 miles upstream.

All events are open to the public and credentialed members of the media.

--DOI--