Plans unveiled for removal of Bar Mills dam on Saco River

Brookfield Shifts Course, Now Plans Full Removal of Bar Mills Dam on the Saco River

By Maine News Now Staff

A Canadian-owned hydropower company is moving forward with plans to remove the entire Bar Mills Project dam straddling the Saco River between Buxton and Hollis, abandoning an earlier proposal that would have left a sizable portion of the structure in place.

Brookfield White Pine Hydro, the Maine arm of Brookfield Renewable Partners, unveiled the revised plan at a public meeting held June 25 at the Hollis Town Hall. The company intends to file permit applications this fall with federal, state and local agencies, and is accepting written public comments through Sept. 1.

The dam has been dormant since 2017, when inspectors discovered concrete problems that halted power generation. Brookfield faced three options: retool the station, rebuild the powerhouse and add fish passage, or surrender its federal license and take the structure out. It chose the third.

Kevin Cooley, an engineer with the consulting firm Kleinschmidt working on the project, said the decision to remove the full dam — not just the spillway — came after extended talks with a decommissioning committee made up of representatives from Buxton and Hollis. Four years ago, the company had proposed keeping the Rogers Fibre foundation on the right side of the river to save money and reduce construction impacts. That piece, along with the canal headworks on the Hollis side, will now also come out, allowing the canal to dry up and be replanted.

"Those are two very big things," Cooley said. "A lot of effort has been put into coming to that conclusion."

Not everything will disappear. The powerhouse and spillway on the southern side of the Bar Mills bridge will remain, repurposed as storage and office space. Existing fencing and security cameras will stay in place to deter vandalism, and Brookfield plans to add plantings and screening so the structure is less visible from the road. The parking area, canoe portage and trails on Usher Island, just south of the dam and bridge, will also be untouched.

If regulators approve the project, construction would begin in late 2027 or 2028 and unfold in two phases over six months.

Changes for Paddlers and Anglers

Recreation is one of the more complicated pieces of the plan. Cooley said the company is working with the towns to establish a new access point upstream, behind the Hollis Town Hall, where flat water would allow paddlers to put in canoes and kayaks. An existing gravel access road near a salt and equipment shed could be improved relatively easily, providing a more reliable route to the river.

The boat launch immediately upstream of the dam, however, would no longer be easy to reach. Cooley said the water level there is expected to drop five or six feet once the dam is gone, and Brookfield wants to remove the dam's flashboards next May to allow a gradual lowering and revegetation of the shoreline before construction begins.

The character of the river upstream would also shift. Cooley described the stretch just north of the dam today as calm and still — ideal for paddling against the current. After removal, he said, it would more closely resemble the downstream side of the bridge.

"It will be rocky, boulder-y and ripple-y," Cooley said. "There will be times that you might be able to paddle upstream and there will be times that you certainly couldn't paddle upstream. The flow is not impacted by the removal of the dam, but the velocity is certainly impacted."

The existing parking lot would remain, and Cooley acknowledged that people may still find ways to reach the river informally, even if the banks grow brushy.

Mark Woodruff, a former member of the decommissioning committee who lives in Buxton, urged Brookfield to consider a formal portage near the old launch. That site sits just before a natural drop of roughly seven feet in the river, he noted, and paddlers will need a clear route.

"Don't lose sight of that," Woodruff told the Brookfield representatives.

Others in the room raised similar concerns about sustained, convenient access along the river for small craft.

Worry Over Wells

For neighbors who draw drinking water from wells close to the river, the drawdown is a more pressing concern. Several Hollis and Buxton residents asked whether their wells could run dry once water levels fall.

Ryan Nadeau, a technical manager at Brookfield, said company staff have been gathering baseline information on residential wells in the area. He pledged that Brookfield would address any wells affected by the project, but said the company needs good data before the dam comes out in order to fairly assess any future claims.

"If we don't have that data up front, it makes it challenging to evaluate that," Nadeau said.

He urged homeowners whose wells are currently functioning normally to contact Brookfield now so the company has a record to compare against later.

Restoring the River

Despite disagreements over details, those attending the meeting shared a common goal: returning the Saco to something closer to its pre-dam condition.

Steve Heinz, a member of the Maine Council of Trout Unlimited, said the removal would reopen a stretch of river that has been cut off to migratory fish for generations. "With the dam gone, you'd assume that you're going to have fish passage, something that's overdue and something that dam removal generally takes care of," he said.

Hollis resident Rita Bradbury pressed Brookfield to take revegetation seriously, citing years of watching invasive Japanese knotweed spread around Usher Island. She asked the company to bring in a wetland biologist and to replant native species rather than leave disturbed ground open to invasives. Bradbury also called for removing every piece of the dam that Brookfield has no use for, including the powerhouse spillway, both to protect the natural environment and to eliminate safety hazards.

What's Next

The draft decommissioning plan is available online through the town of Hollis and in print at the Hollis Town Hall. Written comments can be sent to Brookfield before the Sept. 1 deadline. After reviewing feedback, the company will finalize its license surrender application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and submit the necessary federal, state and local permit applications.

Brookfield expects to secure all permits by September 2027 and to receive its official surrender order two months later, clearing the way for construction and site restoration to begin.