New online calculator shows what Toddy Pond will cost taxpayers

Coalition holds public meetings on future of dams at Toddy Pond, Alamoosook Lake

By Tricia Thomas

BLUE HILL—More than 50 residents who gathered for an information session at town hall on September 10 got a first look at the implications of public ownership of a concrete dam at Toddy Pond that its current owner wants to abandon. Town officials have also rolled out a new online calculator that will tell property owners what the dam will cost them in increased taxes and assessments.

The meeting was one of four that were held over a week in towns that border the eight-mile freshwater pond, which include Blue Hill, Orland, Penobscot and Surry. Members of the Narramissic Watershed Coalition, a group of town officials and residents formed to study the issue, also discussed plans for taking ownership of the dam at Alamoosook Lake, which is located entirely in Orland.

The Toddy Pond Dam. Photo by Tricia Thomas.

History of the issue

Both Toddy Pond and Alamoosook Lake, which are popular spots for fishing and other water sports, were dammed more than 100 years ago to supply water to a now-shuttered paper mill in Bucksport. When the plant was sold in 2014, ownership of the dams also changed hands. Last year, new owners AIM/Bucksport Mill LLC petitioned the state to relinquish ownership of the two dams, along with a third dam at Silver Lake in Bucksport. While the company’s first application was denied, its second was approved by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) last November.

A plan for voter approval

The coalition’s information sessions were a first step in getting voter approval on November 4 for creating two quasi-governmental watershed districts that will take ownership of the aging dams. Voters in Blue Hill, Orland, Penobscot and Surry will vote on whether to create and fund the Toddy Pond Watershed Management District, which would repair and maintain Toddy Pond Dam. Orland voters will decide in November on whether to also create and fund the Alamoosook Lake Watershed District, which will repair and maintain the dam there.

“We want to get in front of residents, we want to have feedback, and we want to share some of the things that we’re doing to see if it makes sense and if it resonates—whether you’re a lakefront owner or not,” meeting co-moderator Jeff Roth, a coalition member and Toddy Pond homeowner, told the Blue Hill audience on September 10.

Roth said that a recent coalition survey indicated that about 80 percent of the 700 local residents surveyed wanted the dams preserved. Many of those surveyed also wanted the costs of that preservation to be shared, he added.

“As a lakefront owner, I think there certainly should be [cost-sharing],” Roth said. “Obviously, we’re on the lake, we own the properties or camps, and we’re taking advantage of being on the water…so, it makes sense that we’re going to share in the costs.”

Calculating the cost

Under the proposed plan, half of the costs associated with owning and maintaining the Toddy Pond dam would be borne by pond property owners through monetary “assessments” levied by the waterfront district. The other half would be proportionally funded by taxes from Blue Hill, Orland, Penobscot and Surry. Similarly, half of the costs of owning the Alamoosook Lake dam would be culled from waterfront assessments, with Orland taxpayers funding the remaining half.

D. Scott Miller, a coalition member and Blue Hill select board member, said the group has developed an online cost calculator to help taxpayers estimate how much they’ll likely be paying for the plan.

“A lot of people have been asking from the beginning, ‘How much will this cost me?’ So, we built an online cost estimator where any property owner can enter information on whether their property is fronting the pond or the lake, how much their assessed value is, whether or not they have water access, roughly how much shorefront frontage they have, and what they think the [annual] operating costs for the dam will be [choosing from three provided options, ranging from $75,000 to $250,000],” Miller explained.

Roth showed those gathered on September 10 how the calculator works. Choosing the specific online calculator for Toddy Pond dam ownership, a Blue Hill taxpayer with an assessed property value of $350,000 and 150 feet of shorefront on Toddy Pond, using a median $150,000 in total district operating costs as an example, can expect to pay a $106 waterfront assessment, plus about $1 more in annual town property taxes if the referendum passes. Blue Hill taxpayers who do not live or have a property on Toddy Pond won’t need to pay a waterfront assessment, and will pay about $1 in additional property taxes per year.

“Unlike the other towns, where a substantial portion of their assessed property values are on these lakes, most of our assessed property value is on the Blue Hill Bay, on salt water,” Miller told the audience. “So, these numbers are small because Toddy Pond, as a portion of Blue Hill’s taxable base, is also small. We have something like 34 parcels on Toddy Pond and we have something like 1,800 parcels in the town.”

In Penobscot, using those same calculations, pond homeowners can expect a waterfront property assessment of $151 and an additional $22 more in taxes annually. Non-waterfront taxpayers in Penobscot will pay an estimated $22 per year in additional property taxes.

In Surry, also using the same calculations, taxpayers on the pond will pay a $121 assessment to the district, and $16 more in property taxes per year. Non-waterfront taxpayers in Surry will pay an additional $16 in property taxes.

In Orland, the estimates are higher. Using the specific calculator for ownership of both dams, an Alamoosook Lake homeowner with an assessed value of $350,000 and 150 feet of frontage, using the median $150,000 in total district operating costs, can expect a waterfront assessment of $360, and a $93 increase in property taxes per year. Homeowners on Toddy Pond in Orland can expect to pay a $128 annual waterfront assessment, and $93 more in taxes per year.

Gina Bushong, an Orland select board and coalition member, said that the costs involved with abandoning the dams and draining the lakes would ultimately be higher for each municipality than taking them over. Those higher costs can be viewed in the cost calculators, she and Roth said.

The owners of the dam are seeking state approval to abandon ownership of the 100-year-old structure. Photo by Tricia Thomas.

Costs of inaction

Bucksport Mill LLC’s abandonment of the dams and a collective “no” by voters on dam ownership would trigger draining of the lakes, resulting in up to an eight-foot drop in water levels, Roth said. The drop would have myriad long-term environmental impacts, render existing boat launches on both lakes unusable, and affect area fire departments’ ability to use water from the lakes for firefighting.

The dams’ abandonment and draining of the lakes also would result in an estimated $50 million reduction in property valuations. That reduction, in turn, would erode each town’s tax base, Roth said.

“If the water is not in the lake, or is 400 feet from where my current shoreline is today, then the value of my property goes down, market-wise. I won’t be able to sell it for the same [amount] that I could if the water was there,” Roth said. “But, in conjunction with that, from a tax revenue perspective, if my property value goes down, so does the amount of taxes the town can collect.”

In Blue Hill, which has the fewest properties on Toddy Pond, the annual tax loss could total $50,000. In Orland, which has the highest number of lakefront properties, the tax loss could amount to $500,000 per year, Roth said.

Businesses that depend on revenue from homeowners and users of the lakes, such as restaurants, grocers, and marine and outdoor sports suppliers, also would suffer, losing about $9 million per year collectively, Roth said.

No savior in sight

Roth said that while the coalition was formed with legislative help from Maine State Representatives Steven M. Bishop (R-Bucksport) and Nina Milliken (D-Blue Hill), state takeover of the dams is unlikely.

“That’s a misconception that I wish wasn’t out there, because that’s just not going to happen,” he said. “These people at this front table have had a lot of interactions with a lot of state agencies over the past two years, and there is absolutely no indication, from any of the state agencies, that they have any desire to take ownership of either of those dams.”

“There are about 630 dams in the state of Maine, and they don’t want to set the precedent of taking over these two dams,” Roth added.

State agencies also are precluded by statutes that date back to Maine’s paper-producing heyday from forcing Bucksport Mill to perform needed repairs or deferred maintenance on the aging dams, Bushong said.

“We’ve gone to MEMA, the DEP and the Attorney General’s office and said, ‘Can’t you at least require them to take care of the deferred maintenance so that’s not dumped on us?’ Every agency said, ‘We do not have the authority to force them,’” she said.

According to a report from GEI Engineering, a firm hired by the coalition to assess the condition of the dams, both need repair of deteriorating concrete and structural erosion, as well as removal of vegetation in and around them. GEI gave the Toddy Pond dam a “poor” rating, and rated the Alamoosook dam as “fair.”

Having the watershed districts would put the dams “in local control,” Bushong added. “The districts would be made up of local people. It’s not some giant corporation making decisions that we simply have to live with. This will [provide for] a free-standing board that has the ability to make decisions based on input from their community members.”

Miller stressed that voters in November will only be deciding whether to form the watershed districts and pay for its first-year operating costs, which include legal and administrative costs. Projects to repair the dams would need to be put before voters at separate town meetings, he added.

“[The referendum] does not include any money for actually owning and operating the dam. It’s basically money for getting ready to do it,” Miller said. “We’ll be ready to assume ownership of the dams whenever they’re available.”

At least one municipality must vote to form the district for it to be established. Also, if voters in a specific town do not approve funding, its share of the budget will be transferred to lakefront property owners.

Next steps

Residents who could not attend the meetings in person can attend a remote online session on September 23, beginning at 6 p.m. A link to the online meeting, as well as links to the cost calculators, are available on each town’s website or at https://damcalc.bluehillme.gov/.

Public hearings will be held in each of the towns in October in advance of the November vote.