LEWISTON — The city could be close to taking ownership of the downtown canals free of charge, after seven years of negotiations.
City Administrator Ed Barrett said a proposed agreement between the city and Brookfield White Pine Hydro would give the city control of the canals while preserving the city’s water rights.
“The city has been interested in acquiring the canals for a long time,” Barrett said. “We see them as an important potential amenity for our riverfront and for development down there. This allows us to do that, while preserving our water rights and limiting the city’s upfront costs associated with purchase price or immediate repairs.”
He is scheduled to present the proposal to the City Council at a special workshop at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 14. Councilors should vote on the terms later this month or in May, and then lawyers will write a formal agreement.
The city has been in negotiations to take over the canals since 2008, and owning them could let the public begin using them.
“It may not be immediate, but it is one of the next big projects we are looking at,” Barrett said. “We would like to start doing some work beautifying the banks of the canals and doing some work to make them more visually accessible to the community.”
The canals run for 1½ miles through the downtown, beginning just downstream of the Great Falls on the Androscoggin River and rejoining the river just south of Locust Street. The system includes two main canals, upper and lower, and two cross canals. Water levels are controlled by the gatehouse at the top canal system.
They were built to power Lewiston’s mills and can still generate electricity, although the city has no operating generators.
The city has rights to the first 150 cubic feet per second of water flowing through the canals.
Brookfield is expected to eliminate its canals from their Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licenses and the city will eliminate its power-generating licenses.
It would also clear up ownership issues at Bates Mill No. 5. The city owns the building, but Brookfield owns rights to the unused generators in the building’s basement.
“We would get ownership of the canal system, plus all of the rights that Brookfield has in generating facilities along the canals,” Barrett said. “That would take care of any potential issues about continuing rights in Mill No. 5.”
The canals were dug in the mid-1800s and were first owned by Union Power. That was later taken over by Central Maine Power. CMP was later purchased by Florida Power and Light and eventually renamed NextEra Energy Maine.
The city and NextEra were close to an agreement in 2012 when the company withdrew and later sold it assets to Canada-based Brookfield.
The city has been in negotiations with Brookfield since, and was close to a deal in 2014. The city would have given up its claim for 150 cubic feet per second, according to terms of the 2014 agreement, settling for 70 cubic feet per second.
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