207: The Nature Conservancy plans to buy four dams, but pledges to protect Maine’s biggest paper mill

This news story originally ran on NewsCenterMaine on December 15, 2025.

SKOWHEGAN, Maine — Along the flat terrain of the Kennebec River, the huge Sappi paper mill can be easily seen from many directions, as its tall stacks emit equally tall plumes of steam from the paper making process. The 50-year-old mill is a local fixture and one of the region’s most important employers.

“We have 750 to 800 employees,” company Vice President Sean Wallace said. “For every job in the mill, that results in another eight jobs in the community, so the mill really impacts 6,000 jobs in the communities.”

The future of the Sappi Somerset mill is on the minds of those thousands and many more because of a plan by The Nature Conservancy to purchase four hydro dams on the Kennebec River and eventually remove them.

The goal, according to TNC’s Alex Mas, is to restore that stretch of the Kennebec to be a free-flowing river, where migratory fish, such as shad and Atlantic Salmon, can easily swim upstream. 

The Conservancy has negotiated a purchase agreement with current dam owner Brookfield to buy the four dams for $168 million. Alex Mas said the sale is scheduled to be completed next summer.

“We have a vision for the Kennebec as a free-flowing river, that both restores the ecological health of the river and strengthens the local economy,” Mas said.

The dams generate a total of 47 megawatts of hydro-electric power, Mas explained, and their plan calls for Brookfield to continue operating the dams and generating that electricity, for the next several years. During that time, he said, TNC will develop its full plan for how to find alternate sources of electricity for the Maine grid, then how to decommission the dams in Waterville, Winslow, Fairfield, and Skowhegan.

Only after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the TNC plan and decommission the dams, can the conservation group move ahead with efforts to remove them.

The biggest concern, at the outset, is the Somerset mill.

Since it was built 50 years ago, the mill has depended on water that is piped in from the impoundment behind the Shawmut Dam in Fairfield.

Paper mills use a lot of water, Sean Wallace explained, both for producing pulp and making paper.

“We use just under 30 million gallons per day of water here at the mill,” he said. “Water is essential for the process, so without that impoundment it would impact operations here.”

By impact, he said the mill could not operate.

“We are gravely concerned,” Wallace said. “I think this creates cloud of uncertainty for employees, all the people who support the mill and the local communities.”

The Nature Conservancy has heard that message loud and clear—in part because talks about the future of the Shawmut dam have been ongoing for the past four years. During that time the question of water for the mill has always come up.

The Conservancy is also part of Maine’s first products industry, because it also owns and manages about 200,000 acres of forest last in northern Maine. The Sappi mill is an essential market for wood from a wide area of the state.

“We are 100 percent committed to working with them,” Mas said. “We believe there are a range of viable options, and we have to determine which of those will give Sappi the comfort they need, and that’s essential.”

The company and the Conservancy both say they’ve done extensive studies of the river and the dams but disagree on the amount of water that will remain once the dam is removed. 

Mas says The Nature Conservancy believes there should still be enough water flowing downriver to meet the mill’s needs, but Wallace says Sappi’s studies show something quite different—that the remaining water level would be 8 feet below their system of intake pipes and that there would likely be too much silt and debris to use it.

There are other options, however.

In nearby Benton, on the Sebasticook River, a fish elevator was installed on a hydro dam to lift large numbers of migrating alewives up and over the dam, so they can swim upriver to smaller streams to spawn.

In Howland, on the Piscatiquis River, a new channel was built to let fish bypass the dam while retaining much of the existing water impoundment. 

Wallace says they particularly like the approach of the latter, as it would let the company continue to pipe water while allowing fish to swim through as needed.

“We share the goal of improving sea run fisheries on the river,” Wallace said. “We remain optimistic there is a win-win solution. “

For the Nature Conservancy, getting fish—especially Atlantic salmon—upstream is a key objective. Mas explained that removing or bypassing those four dams would give fish an open path from the sea into the Sandy River watershed, where he says there is a large network of tributaries in which fish could spawn.

Solving the Shawmut dam problem and meeting the needs of the Sappi mill appear to be the key to the rest of the plan.

“It’s not an option for us to have the work we do at the Shawmut dam jeopardize the viability of the Somerset mill,” Mas said. 

There is also a financial incentive for the Conservancy to solve the mill’s water issue. Mas says TNC has already raised $143 million in pledges and donations for the project, from donors across the country. Some of the donations, however have come with the condition that the Sappi mill be protected.

“Because they understand this only works if we take care of the economy of the region, take care of the communities,” Mas said. 

Nothing will change quickly, he shared, and discussions with the company and the communities will progress. 

There are other questions, such as the impact of lower water levels on riverfront property owners, or the property tax impact on the towns in which the dams are located. Those tax payments are significant—well over $300,000 annually in both Fairfield and Skowhegan. 

For now, Mas says TNC will continue paying those taxes at the same time it continues to operate the dams.

Solving the mill issue will apparently need to come first. Longer term impacts will be part of the ongoing discussions.

The dams have been part of the local landscape, and environment, as long as local people can remember.

A big reason why there are so many questions as change comes to the Kennebec.