The plan was to build a series of dams between islands and the mainland in Passamaquoddy Bay between Canada and the United States. Filling an area about half the size of the bay with the incoming tide, and blocking the tide to the other half would provide the head from which the water would fall. Releasing the bay area that filled, and sending it through turbines into the area not filled, was basically how the plan was supposed to work. It called for the construction of massive, long concrete barriers, locks, and generating stations. The plan called for three dams totaling a length of 7,200 feet, with depths up 175. Concrete remnants remain in the waters off Eastport. The designer, engineer, and promoter of the project was Dexter Cooper, who with his brother Hugh had developed some of the biggest electrical generating projects in the country. They built the Keokuk Dam on the Mississippi in the Iowa, the Muscle Shoals Dam in Mississippi, and an enormous dam in Russia. Cooper was born in Rushford, Ohio in 1880, the son of a bridge engineer. After studying hydrology at a German Institute he came back to the U.S. and soon got involved in some of county's largest hydroelectric engineering projects. Conceived in the 1920's, the Passamaquoddy plan appeared in newspapers in 1925. The projected cost then would be about 2 billion in 2008 dollars. In a way Cooper didn't go to the bay, the bay came to him. He vacationed in Campobello at the edge of Cobscook Bay and couldn't miss the force of the tides. Looking at it long enough as a hydrologist, and living in the heyday of "harnessing" nature projects, he came up with a plan. He managed to get the support of then President Roosevelt, a fellow Campobello vacationer, and later Canada as a partner. The plan didn't really gain any traction until the U.S. economy totally crashed in 1929. A crash in part precipitated by farmers defaulting on loans they had been encouraged to take out to expand their farms. The promoter of the tidal project, by the late 1920's was being called a friend of President Roosevelt. With the economy in a record breaking ditch, the appeal of the project to President Roosevelt was likely as much for it being a big, temporary jobs rich building project as much as an electricity generating plan. The demand for electricity way down-east was low and the demand for jobs very high. Cooper promoted the plan describing it providing power cheaper than any available. He must have deeply discounted the hefty price tag, which investors would not. In the spirit of the time and the glory of man conquering nature, Cooper told a room of prospective investors that the combined area of the two bays, Passamaquoddy and Cobscook, is 150 square miles, "which can be placed, at a small expense, under complete control."
It was the depths of the depression and even a ditch looked good. But criticism continued. Canada had granted a franchise to the project, but the Canadian Railroad complained that the industrial project would ruin resort business in the area. Fishermen said the changes to tidal flow would ruin the herring fishery. An international commission determined that the herring fishery would in fact be extinguished by the power dams. Two realities that boosters apparently never thought about, would likely be the first considered today. Leaving half an enormous bay nearly empty twice a day and sending the sea water from the other half through turbines would do a number on the ecosystem pretty quick. Second, the huge number of things that grow, and grow rapidly, in a marine environment would likely clog up the works before they got many toasters running. Maybe it's something in the fresh water or air at Eastport. But a few decades earlier a promoter came to Eastport to promote the building of a plant to extract gold from seawater. He gathered investors by describing his invention, which he said would separate and extract the admittedly tiny particles of gold. But with so much seawater right there before their eyes, it was apparently easy for some to imagine the gold accumulating. He accumulated their dollars, screwed around for a few weeks with an apparatus he assembled, and one morning he and the money were not there. However, he left the apparatus for the investors to use. More recently some promoters from Oklahoma, the state, have been in Eastport trying to sell the area on a Liquid Natural Gas unloading and storage facility. Ships would unload the gas into huge storage tanks along shore. Eastport does have one of the few deep water ports in the northeast. It is also in one of the least populated areas in New England, which promoters think is a good thing in case the facility blows up, as they are known to do. That project is being described by critics as the means for residents to trade in the natural beauty of the region, for an industrial New Jersey cityscape and big screen TVs. The possibility of drilling for natural gas off Eastport is not completely out of the equation and could add another dimension of development to the gas plan. But the scale of Dexter Cooper's project, with its blessing from the president, and cudos coming from engineering firms hired to look the project over, when considered in the context of the time, was on the scale of the great pyramids or the ninth wonder of the world. Of course for some the wonder was whether Cooper was out of his mind, but their voices could not be heard above the stock and bond salesmen who would be taking their cut off the top. Later in 1935, after Canada backed out, Cooper decided to build in Cobscook Bay alone, all on the U.S. side. He spoke of housing for 7,000 workers. Some worker buildings were built and remain at Eastport. There is today an informal museum for the project in an Eastport storefront. Real or not, it sounded good at a time when 20% of the U.S. work force was unemployed. But while some engineers said it was possible to build, they also said it would never pay for itself. At that point the cost estimate was 10 billion in 2008 dollars, and the president let it go. Cooper's disappointment in- creased proportionate to the struggle he conducted. On February 2, 1938, Cooper died from a heart attack. But his project did not die with him. In the late 1940's it was considered again for a time, and in 1953 alternate plans were drawn for locating the dams and they were presented to congress. The Kennedy administration looked it over in 1963. But none of these efforts went anywhere beyond discussions. Politicians being politicians, the efforts may have been little more than election year vote bait. The demands for electric power remain, and until humans can discover another way to dry laundry, the demand will grow. The recent proposals by the Ocean Renewable Power Company call for the construction of much less monumental works than were Cooper's. Their plan is to build generating units that are anchored to the bottom of the bay. They would be suspended above the bottom and located 40 feet below the surface. Tidal currents would spin groups of twisted blades that look like the cutting blades on hand pushed lawnmowers. The current would be transmitted through cables buried in the sea bed. The plan is still in the development stage, and although the company is aware of environmental impacts the Cooper era developers didn't consider, they are contending with the same marine environment. Before the development of superpower projects in the 1920's electricity was generated on more local levels. Consolidation demanded bigger plants, and bigger plants demanded bigger trade offs. |
