#Head Tide Dam

• The Sheepscot by inner tube

  Sun, 07/12/2020 - 8:45am

  

  Saturday’s fog, showers and clouds broke, making a sunny, breezy midday for one family’s first time at Alna’s Head Tide Dam. The Fairleys were visiting from Massachusetts. Some members rode inner tubes down the Sheepscot River toward a relative’s home. The rest stayed behind, having fun wading, discussing resident wildlife the family has named and, for sisters Aila, “almost 9,” and Avery, 3, taking turns in an inner tube. “Off they go,” the girls’ uncle Kevin Fairley said earlier as he gave a...

• Couple enjoys cappuccino, cocoa in Sheepscot River sun

  Sun, 03/08/2020 - 7:30am

  

  In summer, Nicholas and Mika Repenning and son Enishi, 8, swim and play at Alna’s Head Tide Dam. Saturday, in the wind and afternoon sun, the Whitefield couple was above the Sheepscot River instead of in it. They had on hats and layers, and held hot drinks as they sat side by side facing upriver, on the new bench on the new platform that last year replaced one of the century-old dam’s abutments. “This is a nice little viewing spot,” he said. “So nice to have fresh air,” she said, smiling. They’...

• Head Tide Dam site to get safety, erosion tweaks

  Thu, 12/26/2019 - 11:15am

  

  A once vegetated spot upriver of Alna’s Head Tide Dam is now a hazardous, “sheer drop,” resident Chris Cooper told selectmen Dec. 23. Big rocks or some other barrier will go there, Atlantic Salmon Federation Vice President of U.S. Programs Andy Goode said in a phone interview Dec. 24. ASF has given the dam site and part of the dam a makeover including a Sheepscot River overlook and, downriver, a stone stairway. Both are railed, but not the spot upriver, Cooper said. As of Dec. 25, an orange...

• Paddlers: Dam’s new opening currently no cakewalk

  Tue, 12/17/2019 - 8:15am

  

  Paddling from Kings Mills in Whitefield to Alna’s Head Tide Dam Sunday, Woolwich’s Catherine Kimball got out of a kayak and the Sheepscot River just before the dam. Fellow Penobscot Paddle and Chowder Society member Reid Anderson of Dresden, an intermediate canoeist, kept going and passed though the wider opening that was part of Atlantic Salmon Federation’s makeover of the century-old, town-owned dam that once powered a lumber mill. “Some would call it sporty. It was fast,” Anderson said of...

• Platform overlooking Sheepscot River to open soon in Alna

  Sat, 12/07/2019 - 8:45am

  

  Here come the railings and bench for Head Tide Dam’s new overlook in Alna. And with their installation, underway through the week of Dec. 9, will come public access to the overlook, Atlantic Salmon Federation’s Maranda Nemeth said near the site Dec. 5. She had just met with Sumco, the Massachusetts contractor that did most of the site’s months-long makeover. She said the snowstorm delayed Sumco’s plans to return Dec. 3. And when crew members started Dec. 4, they had snow to remove, she said in...

• ‘I’m a believer’: Head Tide Dam work celebrated

  Fri, 11/01/2019 - 8:45am

  

  Greg Shute figures he has canoed at Alna’s Head Tide Dam 100 times. It can get a little hazardous there, he said. But looking at it in the rain Thursday, Oct. 31, with all the changes weeks or months old, he said it just looks like it will be fun. And it looks safer for all, including swimmers, with the new steps made of stones, he said. Then and moments later to a crowd at the site’s dedication, Alna’s third selectman spoke of some of the work as stone art, and this spot on the Sheepscot River...

• Head Tide Dam’s mostly done makeover heads for fete, check

  Sun, 10/27/2019 - 8:30am

  

  Weather permitting, Chris Cooper expects to get all the plants in the ground at Alna’s Head Tide Dam by Thursday, Oct. 31. The dedication of the site Atlantic Salmon Federation and partners made over is at 11 a.m. off Head Tide Road. And despite the Halloween date, those involved have reported nothing scary during the half million dollar project this summer and fall. It took down an abutment and put an overlook over the Sheepscot River, added stone steps down the river bank and rebuilt a...

• Head Tide Dam latest: Relics rescue, and a local’s thoughts on project

  Mon, 09/16/2019 - 8:45am

  

  Alna’s and Waterville’s Peter Love has been coming to Head Tide Dam and its swimming hole since 1971. He was 12 when his parents got a piece of land off Lothrop Road. Now it’s his. And though the Army veteran no longer swims there, he still visits the dam and has been viewing it regularly this summer with the fish passage project underway. When Love, 60, parked and went to look at it from the Head Tide Road bridge Friday night, it was his second visit that day. He’s also been trying to pinpoint...

• Concrete coming: Head Tide Dam update

  Mon, 08/26/2019 - 8:30am

  

  With some ledge and the abutment gone from Alna’s Head Tide Dam, project manager Maranda Nemeth said Friday, she can already picture how the water and fish will likely travel the channel the work has opened up. “It’s very rewarding to see that,” Nemeth said in an interview on the Head Tide Road bridge. “(The fish) are going to have a lot of space and ability to move through this reach of the (Sheepscot River). I’m really looking forward to it.” In the meantime, tons of sand bags remained in the...

• Abutment down: Head Tide Dam update

  Tue, 07/30/2019 - 8:45am

  

  Part of Alna’s concrete, century-old Head Tide Dam became history last week, and on Monday continued being pulled off the Sheepscot River. And the dam, the site and the fish and people who traverse it will all be better off with all that follows, according to project manager Maranda Nemeth of Midcoast Conservancy. Nemeth took questions yesterday from the Wiscasset Newspaper and three visitors involved with the conservancy. From the Head Tide Road bridge and then, for a closer look, the...

• Head Tide Dam latest: Big white bags

  Tue, 07/23/2019 - 8:15am

  

  Before Head Tide Dam gets a new viewing platform that gives the fish more room to get through, workers at the Head Tide Road, Alna site need a place to work in the Sheepscot River. They said that was the point of the heavy lifting Monday, with a crane from SumCo of Peabody, Massachusetts: SumCo site foreman Jarrod Martellucci was hooking one white bag of gravel at a time onto the crane, which raised each one up from the parking area and carried it toward the century-old, town-owned concrete dam...

• Head Tide Dam project ends public access for season

  Fri, 07/05/2019 - 1:00pm

  

  Construction was set to commence after the July 4 holiday at the Head Tide Dam site in Alna. The construction period will last until Nov. 15. During construction, conditions will be unsafe and there will be no river, swimming hole, parking lot, or paddle portage access. The contractors will occupy the entire property with machinery and materials. While swimming is inaccessible at Head Tide this year, other great swimming and paddling spots close by are Damariscotta Lake and Pinkham Pond. The...

• Alna dam change moves to 2019

  Tue, 07/24/2018 - 2:15pm

  

  The century-old west abutment at Alna’s Head Tide Dam will stay put this year, an Atlantic Salmon Federation official said Friday. ASF and its partners on the Alna project and two others on the Sheepscot River are now looking to next year for the work Alna nodded in 2017 for the town-owned dam, ASF Vice President of U.S. Programs Andrew Goode said in a phone interview. First Selectman Melissa Spinney said Tuesday, she recently got word from Goode the plans had changed to 2019. “It seems to be...
• Alna selectmen

  Alna, Atlantic Salmon Federation work on dam deal

  Fri, 05/12/2017 - 8:15am

  

  Alna selectmen are starting work on a deal with the Atlantic Salmon Federation for its project at Head Tide Dam. In March, town meeting voters authorized the board to negotiate a contract. Selectmen said May 11, they will be reviewing the draft they got via email May 8 from ASF’s vice president of U.S. programs, Andy Goode. He states in the email, he would like to meet to discuss the draft and otherwise catch up. “Other things to consider (are) keeping the same or a different small committee...

• Alna nods dam change, fireworks rules, reval

  Sat, 03/18/2017 - 2:15pm

  

  Alna’s Head Tide Dam is headed for a free fix-up if selectmen seal the deal with the Atlantic Salmon Federation; fireworks use now has local rules; and all properties are headed for a revaluation this year or next. Residents turning out at the fire station Saturday passed all those proposals and, according to figures First Selectman David Abbott provided, a $720,957 town budget, up about $48,000 from 2016. The tab doesn’t count the school or county budgets still to come. If those stayed flat,...

• Committee mulls models for new Head Tide Dam abutment

  Wed, 09/07/2016 - 3:00pm

  

  Taking about 30 inches off one end of the Head Tide Dam’s spillway would avoid taking some ledge off the Sheepscot River shoreline, a consultant said Tuesday night about one of the latest models to replace an abutment and try to improve fish passage. Another model would replace the same abutment, leave the 30-inch seam that connects it to the spillway, but lose some ledge, senior water resources engineer Michael Burke of Interfluve told an Alna committee. The town owns the concrete dam that...
• Alna selectmen

  Dam panel gets new start

  Thu, 01/28/2016 - 11:30am

  

  The search for improved fish passage in Alna has selectmen’s OK to go another year, and new measures to help get a proposal the board can get behind. A facilitator, a selectman and another new member are on the way for year two of the Head Tide Dam Committee. Its charter ran out Dec. 31 as selectmen looked at how to ensure no big changes are proposed for the town-owned, concrete dam on the Sheepscot River. Selectmen became concerned months ago about some of the ideas being discussed, that would...