Sappi Fine Paper North America and the nonprofit Friends of the Presumpscot River will begin drafting a legally-binding agreement on constructing fish passageways and removing a dam following a public meeting last week in South Portland.

Pat Keliher, director of the Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat, which is part of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said hosting the Feb. 28 meeting was a legal requirement to allow members of the public to make comments before the legal document can be drafted.

Sappi owns the S.D. Warren paper mill in Westbrook and eight hydroelectric dams along the Presumpscot River, which connects Sebago Lake to the ocean. In June 2007 a preliminary agreement was released that details a compromise for Sappi to build passageways so fish can cross the dams and reach higher points of the river.

The plan calls for the removal of the Cumberland Mills dam in Westbrook, the dam closest to the ocean, and fish passages to be built in phases on the next four dams along the river.

The fish that are expected to use the fish passages include alewives, American eels, chads and brook trout. Not included are Atlantic salmon, which have been cut off from reaching Sebago Lake by dams since 1907.

“That’s the roadmap that will help us reach a final settlement,” said Keliher. He said the final agreement will takes months and will be based on the plan released last June. Also included in the deal is the Maine Department of Marine Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the nonprofit group American Rivers Inc.

Ted Tibbals of Scarborough has a summer home in Standish near Long Point on Sebago Lake and spoke at the meeting about the lack of attention given to Atlantic salmon, but didn’t feel his comments had any effect.

“The bureaucrats listen to you politely, said Tibbals, a member of the Friends of Sebago Lake nonprofit group. “But they’ve already got their minds made up.”

Tibbals said the public meeting should have been held a few months after the preliminary agreement was released.

“They scheduled this in the middle of the winter when so many summer residents aren’t around,” said Tibbals “That leaves those people out of the loop. It’s very unfair.”

Tibbals’ group wants fish passageways to extend through the entire length of the Presumpscot River and allow Atlantic salmon back to the lake.

Dusti Faucher, president of the Friends of the Presumpscot River, said it’s been a century since salmon have swam to Sebago Lake and that the plan is a compromise that will bring other fish back to the river.