🐟 'The damn dam'

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By Michael Shepherd - Sept. 13, 2022
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📷 The Shawmut Dam on the Kennebec River between Fairfield and Benton is pictured on Aug. 20, 2021. (BDN photo by Linda Coan O'Kresik)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 56 days until Election Day.

What we're watching today

The long battle over a Kennebec River dam reemerges as a vulnerability for the governor. A long and complicated war between the administration of Gov. Janet Mills and the owner of four Kennebec River dams took on an electoral tinge on Monday after former Gov. Paul LePage called a news conference to rail against the state's recent delay of certification for a dam that the Sappi pulp mill in Skowhegan relies on.
LePage had local lawmakers in tow for a news conference in Augusta, raising the specter of the mill closing. Bringing his signature amplification, he ended things by suggesting that while he did not invite company officials to his news conference, they may not want to speak out against Mills because she is "very vindictive if you’ve not followed her reign of terror."
The allusion to French Revolution massacres aside (something I've never written before), the issue is real. While neither the dam nor the mill is probably going anywhere, it was the Mills administration that suggested removing this dam and three others along the river last March to allow the endangered Atlantic salmon and other fish species to access upstream spawning grounds, a move backed by environmentalists.
But the state's mishandling of that policy maneuver and political pressure followed, leading the governor to edge off a hard line by last summer, after top legislative Democrats broke with her. In a letter, she vowed to stick up for the mill. She also said a subsidiary of the global investment giant Brookfield Asset Management, which owns the dam, and allies were wrongly suggesting the Shawmut Dam will have to be removed for fish-passage standards to be met.
The state has made some concessions but has generally stuck to stringent fish-passage requirements. The last move came in June, when the state issued a draft rejection for a dam certification, citing fish-passage changes anticipated at the federal level. Brookfield and Sappi have challenged that, with the mill saying it is operating under a "cloud of uncertainty" as a result. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine's 2nd District, has advocated for a speedier federal review process to help resolve things.
The Mills administration has underscored that this decision was not on the merits and that a new permit request will be reconsidered once federal issues are resolved. Lindsay Crete, the governor's spokesperson, said Mills expects her regulators to review that request quickly "so that this process can be concluded once and for all."
"She will not allow the mill to close, and she will not support any outcome in the dam's relicensing that jeopardizes the mill's viability," Crete said.
LePage has a clear electoral goal here. Brookfield and Sappi have something to gain by this controversy becoming part of Maine's political debate. No Maine governor wants a mill to close on their watch. Mills still has had a big role in letting this battle go this far. It is not a purely invented issue and it could be a vulnerability if it stretches out much longer.
For example, millworkers are deeply frustrated with the governor as the dispute blunts investment in the mill and makes for uncertainty in the ranks, said Justin Shaw, the president of the steelworkers union there.
He spoke to Mills at a recent Labor Day event and he said her message has been "the damn dam is going nowhere." His membership is also skeptical of LePage over support for "right-to-work" legislation, but he sees the state slow-walking the permit process despite Mills' stated support for the mill.
"Until we've got something in writing, where we can start getting the investors to invest their money in our mill, they're just words," Shaw said.

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News and notes

📷 A Maine Democratic Party tracker (right) takes video of former Gov. Paul LePage while being blocked by two LePage staffers after a Monday news conference in Augusta. (BDN photo by Michael Shepherd)

📹 LePage staffers and their sign impeded a Democratic tracker.
◉ After LePage threatened to "deck" a Maine Democratic Party tracker that he said was getting too close to him in Madawaska last month, the campaign had a game plan when the tracker rolled up to his Augusta news conference.
◉ The tracker was behind LePage as he exited his vehicle, with John McGough, an adviser to the former governor, telling reporters that the tracker was a "stalker" and asking if Mills has to deal with the same thing. (She has been tracked as well.)
◉ As LePage spoke and when he left, one of his staffers held a sign in front of the tracker's phone outlining the "failures" of Mills. Two staffers stayed between LePage and the tracker as he exited the news conference.
◉ The tracker finished by asking LePage if he would sign a bill banning abortion in Maine, which the former governor answered by telling him to read a newspaper. (He has a solid anti-abortion record but has said he has "no reason" to challenge Maine's permissive abortion laws while declining to say how he would handle restrictive legislation.)
💒 A Maine senator's same-sex marriage bill looks set for a vote.
◉ Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, told reporters on Monday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, will file cloture on her bill to protect the right to same-sex marriage federally, setting up a vote next week. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is the leading Republican negotiator.
◉ Republicans are being cagey for now, with only Collins and two others committing to support it. Winning the 10 needed to pass it will likely rest on a religious freedom amendment being worked out now. Nonetheless, the move from Schumer seems to be a vote of confidence in the talks so far with a top LGBTQ-rights group expecting the measure to pass.
📺 LePage goes negative on Mills in an ad elevating the third candidate.
◉ The former governor rolled out his first ad of the cycle, which is notable on two fronts for almost subliminally elevating independent longshot Sam Hunkler and hitting Mills on both her biography and her budget.
◉ The ad opens by picturing the three candidates for one second: LePage is labeled a "job creator" and turnaround expert," Mills gets "lawyer" and "lifelong politician" and Hunkler is a "doctor" and "Peace Corps [volunteer]." He is likely trying to raise the low-profile candidate's standing in a race that will not be decided by ranked-choice voting, thinking Hunkler may draw more from Mills.
◉ The middle portion of the ad is devoted to Mills, dinging her for moving to San Francisco during the 1966 "Summer of Love." It notes her history in politics dating back to a job ten years later under then-Attorney General Joe Brennan, who is pictured in the ad. LePage is looking to brand Mills as an insider. (She is one, but he is seeking a third term that is unprecedented in the modern era.)

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What we're reading

◉ Former Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine's 2nd District won an A grade but no endorsement from the National Rifle Association in his race with Golden who got a B for the highest grade for any Democrat in Congress.
◉ Three dozen Republican state representatives and candidates for the Maine House said Monday they would not answer voter-guide questions from the BDN, citing a "far-left" agenda.
◉ A senior apartment complex in Glenburn has some of the highest PFAS levels recorded in Maine drinking water so far.
◉ Historic markers in Castine keep getting stolen, including a British Canal sign that was recently vandalized by someone who removed the crucial letter A.

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