AUGUSTA — The Maine Board of Environmental Protection on Thursday denied a request from a group of conservation organizations for a formal appeal hearing over a state-issued water quality certification for the Rumford Falls Hydro Project.

Absent a party who could establish harm or injury from the project, the group was also found not to have standing to challenge the certification, which effectively ended their efforts for a more thorough environmental review of the dam’s operations.

The certification allows the project’s parent company, Brookfield Renewable, to continue operating the dam for another 40 years.

Trout Unlimited, joined by American Whitewater, Maine Rivers, American Rivers and the Conservation Law Foundation, argued that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s August 2024 certification was based on incomplete data.

“Disappointment,” Trout Unlimited’s Steve Heinz said when asked about the board’s decision. “I mean, the fish and the entire ecosystem of the Androscoggin lost, and so did a bunch of potential recreational users. You know, it seemed like they got really lost in the technicalities of this. It’s kind of unfortunate to see a citizen board do that.”

At issue was whether the dam’s operations meet Class C water quality standards which require waters be “of sufficient quality to support all species of fish indigenous to those waters and maintain the structure and function of the resident biological community.”

The state’s classification system ranges from Class D to Class AA. Class AA waters require the highest protection while Class A waters are suitable for drinking water, fishing, recreation and industrial use. Class B waters protect habitat for fish and other aquatic life and allow recreation, navigation and agricultural/industrial use. Class C waters are considered suitable for navigation, industrial processes and cooling water supply.

The appellees’ attorney, Scott Sells, said “a glaring and obvious data gap” exists in DEP’s assessment because the agency had not conducted water quality testing in the upper section of the project area. He argued the department should require Brookfield Renewable to increase the minimum flow from 1 cubic feet per second to 200 through the spillway to improve water quality and allow native fish species, specifically American eels and brook trout, to migrate upstream to northern waterbodies.

Sells also said the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife ignored 35 years of data showing American eels have been recorded in waterbodies north of Rumford Falls.

“There is ample record evidence identifying eels in the area,” he said. “We’ve included some of that evidence.”

Heinz said he and other appellate members were frustrated to hear the dewatered section of the river treated as if it had no ecological value.

“The only reason it has no value is because there isn’t water in it,” he said. “You can go to other places in Maine like the west branch of the Penobscot River, and it’s Class 5 white water, but the bottom is covered with aquatic plants. The organisms adapt to high gradient environments. What they don’t adapt to is no water.”

DEP officials and state experts told the board that testing in the upper section of the dam was both too dangerous to perform and unnecessary as multiple federal and state agencies determined the bypass would not support native aquatic life even with increased flows. MDIFW and the Department of Marine Resources have never asked DEP to consider fish passage as part of Rumford Falls Hydro Project’s certification process.

Heinz maintained that the lack of testing undermines those conclusions because it’s impossible to see what exists if there are no studies — a dry way is not just a disconnect in the river, but also in the methodology, he said.

“That’s what Trout Unlimited is trying to put an end to in this state — these dry ways, which just break the chain of life in a river system,” he said.

DEP staff maintain that water quality testing elsewhere at the project showed conditions within Class C standards.

The board’s decision means the DEP’s certification stands, and Brookfield Renewable may proceed under its renewed federal license without further state review.

Heinz said he sees BEP’s decision as a setback in Trout Unlimited’s continued efforts toward change in the way rivers are treated. The appellees proposed a reasonable solution, he said — to release 200 cubic feet of water per second through the dam “for the fish to have another way downriver other than through turbines.”

“It’s hard to imagine this being consistent with what the majority of Maine’s people would want here,” Heinz said.