Sappi, conservationists will square off at a state hearing on fish passageways.

The repopulation of fish in the Presumpscot River and the financial impact it will have on Sappi are at stake, as the state holds a hearing this week regarding the requirements for fish passage at the paper company’s Cumberland Mills Dam.

Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Commissioner Roland Martin ruled in June that Sappi Fine Paper would be required to create fish passage at the dam. Now, he has to determine the design, location and number of passageways the paper company will have to build.

The hearing is Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the Public Safety Building on Main Street in Westbrook. It’s scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. and could last until 9 p.m. If necessary, the hearing could be continued on Nov. 20. Peter Bourque, of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said there’s no deadline set for Martin to make his decision.

The Cumberland Mills Dam and other dams farther upstream prevent the sea-run species of fish from traveling from the ocean to fresh bodies of water to spawn. Sea-run fish native to the Presumpscot River are blueback herring, alewife, shad and Atlantic salmon.

Conservation groups argue that bringing back the fish populations upstream would result in the return of a host of other animals and birds, such as eagles and osprey. Also, restoring the fish population could increase recreational use of the river, which in turn could also attract new businesses and increase property values along the Presumpscot.

According to Dusti Faucher, president of Friends of the Presumpscot River, two spillways are blocked by the Cumberland Mills Dam. The Friends of the Presumpscot River, along with other conservation groups that have been involved in the process, are pushing for a passageway through each of them.

Sappi, however, has argued that one passageway is sufficient, and requiring anything more would be an unbearable financial burden on the company.

One passageway, Faucher said, would hardly be better than none because fish would continue to “get stranded in the other channel” and not be able to make their way through the dam.

“The restoration won’t take effect the way it should,” Faucher said.

But Sappi disagrees.

“We believe that our proposed, single fishway design would be adequate to pass all the fish that may appear at the dam for many years to come, and possibly forever,” said Donna Cassese, managing director of Sappi’s Westbrook mill.

Cassese said it would cost the company an estimated $12 million to build two passageways.

“This is three times more than what the mill typically spends on capital in a year and would detract from our ability to invest in other capital improvement projects,” she said.

Michelle Flaherty, president of the Westbrook Chamber of Commerce, has supported Sappi and its request to build one passageway.

“We would just like to see a compromise where they’re balancing the health of the fish with the health of Sappi,” Flaherty said. “Now’s not a booming time for the paper industry.”

In addition, Flaherty said, Sappi has already made many improvements for the benefit of fish populations, including shutting down its hydroelectric power stations every year for eight hours a day during a two-month period to allow eels to pass through.

However, according to Faucher, those improvements are minimal in comparison to the benefits Sappi has realized from the river.

“They’ve had the use of this river for hundreds of years without paying anything for it,” she said. “This river belongs to the people of Maine. It doesn’t belong to them.”

Brian Wade, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1069, said even though the company has used the river for free, it’s done other things to give back to the community. Look around Westbrook, he said, the old library on Main Street and the little league fields on Bridge Street are just some of the local amenities brought to the city by Warren family, who once owned the mill.

Wade said he and other Sappi employees who’ve worked at the mill for decades fear their jobs could be jeopardized if the improvements cost more than Sappi can afford.

“It’s money that has to come from somewhere,” he said. “I’m 51 years old. I’m hoping to retire from there.”

For the sake of the company, Wade just hopes the state requirements are reasonable.

“It doesn’t need to be the Taj Mahal of fishways,” he said.

The decision from the commissioner will be the final one in a process that began years ago, when several conservation groups urged the state to require Sappi to build the passageways in order restore populations of migratory fish.

That process came to a halt more than two years ago, when Sappi agreed to remove the dam as part of a deal with the conservation groups. However, a year later, Sappi pulled out of the deal, and the groups – Friends of the Presumpscot River, American Rivers, the Maine Department of Marine Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – renewed their effort to get the state to force the company to provide fish passage.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld conditions in federal licenses that require the mill to maintain fish passages at its other dams. The Cumberland Mills dam is not regulated by a federal license, however, because it does not produce power. Therefore, the Supreme Court decision did not apply to that dam.

Furthermore, in the Supreme Court ruling, Sappi is not forced to install the fish passageways on the other dams until a passage is installed at the Cumberland Mills Dam, because it is the first dam on the river migratory fish meet, preventing them from even reaching the others – which is why the June ruling was so crucial.

Many of the dams previously had fish passageways installed in them, but after years of neglect and aging, they were no longer operational, according to Faucher. They were never replaced because the river was considered too polluted for fish migration. However, in recent years the quality of the river has improved to the point where fish would be able to use it again, she said.

Still, according to Faucher, the fish need two passageways at Cumberland Mills to be able to repopulate the river the way conservations groups hope they can.

“It doesn’t make sense to have fish passage that doesn’t do the job,” she said.