WINDHAM – Michael Shaughnessy strolled along the bank, walking stick in hand, to a stretch of river that had been hidden beneath a reservoir for more than a century.

He paused and marveled at the cracks in the bottom of the pond caused by the heat of the summer, the stumps left over from 19th-century logging, and the newly grown weeds growing where water had not long ago.

This spring, an unexpected problem with one of the many dams along the Presumpscot River caused a massive drop in water in Dundee Pond in Windham. Although the pond disappeared, it exposed part of the river, opening a window into history.

At first, Shaughnessy, board president of the Friends of the Presumpscot River, was concerned about the environmental impact of the sudden water-lowering process and what it would mean for the town, which relies on Dundee Pond both as a gathering place and as a source of summer revenue from admission fees and boat rentals..

These things still worry him, but the more time he spends exploring the area, the more he feels that he is experiencing something that hasn’t been seen for 100 years and may not be seen for the next 100 years.

“You get a glimpse of what’s beneath the pond, which is actually just a wild river,” he said. “It’s like traveling back in time.”

Now Shaughnessy is advising anyone who will listen to him to check out the stretch of river before the dam is repaired and it is underwater again in the fall.

Landis Hudson, executive director of Maine Rivers, a nonprofit organization that works to protect and restore the state’s waterways, was among those who recently toured the area with Shaughnessy. She described it as a “fascinating combination of profound ugliness and unexpected beauty.”

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said. “It just didn’t seem possible.”

Long before industrialization and before many communities in Maine were established along the waterways by paper and textile mills, the Presumpscot River flowed largely unhindered for 26 miles from Sebago Lake to Casco Bay.

It was an important food source for the Abenaki people who lived in southern Maine before colonization. The name Presumpscot actually means “many falls” or “many rough places,” and that was its identity before dams changed the natural flow of water.

The first dams were built in the 18th century to provide electricity to paper mills. In the mid-19th century, a canal was built along the river to transport goods and supplies, but it was soon replaced by railroads. Then came more dams to harness hydroelectric power. One of these dams created Dundee Pond, a reservoir that was later converted into a popular city park and swimming lake.

But the river was still there, hidden beneath the pond.

Now it is visible again for a short time.

Rob Sanford, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Southern Maine and editor of “River Voices: Perspectives on the Presumpscot River,” said the drained pond looks like an alien landscape at first glance.

But a closer look reveals the story – the hand-made canals and the stumps of the “wolf trees”, large individual trees left behind as shade for grazing animals,

“To appreciate something, I think it helps to know it,” he said. “Then it’s somehow easier to recognize its value. Rivers are taken for granted.”

Shaughnessy said the new view of the river, which also shows water rushing past rocky waterfalls, is more reminiscent of something one might see in the West, something untouched by human intervention.

“Our rivers have been dammed for so long, we just don’t know it,” he said.

“LOST SEASON” AT DUNDEE POND

According to a press release from Relevate Power Management, the New York-based company that manages the Dundee Dam, the drop in water levels was caused by one of the two floodgates – designed to allow excess water to pass through during floods – becoming stuck in the open position.

As the weeks went by, the water level of Dundee Pond dropped and the pond bottom became exposed.

The company has been working on repairing the dam for most of the summer and is expected to finish by the end of August. After that, it will slowly begin to refill the reservoir, which will then cover and hide the wild river below.

The failure was no surprise, Shaughnessy said. The dam is over 100 years old and even with regular maintenance, its life expectancy is not unlimited.

While the pond is being drained, Relevate and its contractors will rehabilitate other gates on the dam “to minimize the likelihood of further gate-related failures in the coming years,” the company’s CEO, Matthew Wenger, said in a statement.

Relevate will then refill the pond in consultation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees hydroelectric power plants, and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The pond is expected to return to normal by mid-October.

The sudden drop in water levels this spring came as a surprise to city officials, said Linda Brooks, director of Windham Parks & Recreation.

“It was difficult because we didn’t have much lead time,” she said.

The recreation area opened on Memorial Day weekend but had to close two weeks later. In a typical summer, people swim, sunbathe and kayak there.

Brooks said there was hope the problem could be resolved by the end of July, but that has not happened.

“We call it the lost season,” she said.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we will be compensated for any losses,” she said. “We did file a claim with our insurance company, but it was not covered.”

Although the swimming season at Dundee Pond has been lost, the sudden change has created short-term opportunities for whitewater kayaking and even fly fishing just north of the pond, Shaughnessy said.

But he is concerned about the long-term impact of the sudden loss of water. The mussel and clam population has been decimated, and mussels are important filter feeders that help keep the water clean. As I walked from the beach at Dundee Park to the wild river this week, I couldn’t avoid the crunch of the mussels.

And what effect this has on the fish that swim and spawn in the river is still unknown.

“They should be held accountable,” Shaughnessy said of Relevate.

INCREASED INTEREST IN DAM RECONSTRUCTION

Steve Heinz, who closely follows dam operations as part of his work for the Maine Council of Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit organization that works to restore rivers and streams as natural habitat for fish, said the recent disruption is the latest in a series of problems.

“I think anyone who cares about the environment would be deeply moved by what has happened at the Dundee site,” he said. “The impact has been massive. It’s a complete destruction of what was there.”

Heinz said if hydropower is to continue to be used in Maine, it must be done responsibly, and he does not believe that is happening.

Even before the Dundee Dam failure, there was a lot of discussion about removing dams in Maine. The factories that needed them are no longer there, and residents are more concerned about recreational opportunities and protecting habitats that have been destroyed for decades.

A dam at Saccarappa Falls, further down the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, was removed in 2019 as part of a larger river restoration project. Just this week, Yarmouth residents heard from federal officials about a proposal to remove two dams on the Royal River. Other dams remained but were fitted with fish ladders that allow species to move freely up and downstream.

Shaughnessy said the Presumpscot River once had the most dams per mile of any river in the country.

The Abenaki tribes viewed the dams on the river as an attack on their livelihood. In the 1750s, one of the tribal leaders, Chief Polin, even walked to Boston to protest because Maine was still part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the time.

Polin was later killed in a conflict with white settlers in connection with the dispute over the fish ladder.

He erected a monument to Polin on Shaughnessy’s property near the river in Westbrook.

Strolling along the riverbank over the past few weeks has felt both celebratory and life-affirming, said Shaughnessy, who describes himself as a “river guy.”

For him, it’s an opportunity to imagine what it was like when the indigenous people fished and animals grazed on the banks. And an opportunity to wonder if it could ever look like that again.

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