Anatomy of a failure: Who killed Quoddy?

By Mark C. Borton,

(2023)

REVIEW BY DEANE RYKERSON

A RIVAL to the Hoover Dam in Eastport?

That could have been the Quoddy project to generate electricity from one of the highest tides in the world.

For Mainers, the ghost of Quoddy still exists as opportunity lost. The details, in all their shame and glory, are now exposed for all to see in the new book Moondoggle by Mark C. Borton. This is the first full accounting of the dream to harness perpetual tidal power for the nation soon to become the most powerful in the world.

Although small tidal mills existed throughout the coast of Maine starting in the 1600s, harnessing Passamaquoddy Bay was an enormous multi-dam venture with thousands of workers building it in the 1930s. It started as an idea hatched by the brilliant engineer Dexter Cooper who designed hydropower projects from the Mississippi to the Soviet Union. His bride was a summer resident of Campobello Island, Canada, just across the strait from Eastport.

Campobello was also a summer retreat for the Roosevelts of New York.

Moondoggle follows the twists and turns of an idea to build dams and huge reservoirs fed by the Eastport tides. The book follows the perspectives of Cooper (the engineer), Franklin Roosevelt (starting from his time as Under Secretary of the Navy), and Roscoe Emery, the prominent publisher of Maine’s then longest continually operating newspaper, the Eastport Sentinel.

The project shifted from private enterprise, to international (with Canada), to public-private, to a public works project, and faced hurdles every step of the way. The players included the citizens of Eastport, Washington politicians, the press, the U.S. Army, the Passamaquoddy Nation, industries, and the electric utilities.

Moondoggle follows the drama that transformed Eastport with the construction of Quoddy Village, the economic boom, the dangling promises, and the eventual demise of the dream. We can read historical details from the sardine days, to the Depression, to World War II, to the era of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The level of detail and extensive source material results in a fascinating work that goes beyond history to include society, culture, politics, and community.

This absorbing story informs us about where Maine is today. It is a story featuring power and politics and leaves us with many “what ifs.” What if Washington County had become a manufacturing center for aluminum with the cheapest electricity in the Northeast? What if John F. Kennedy hadn’t been killed a month after his visit to Quoddy? What if Eastport, as a thriving community in the 1930s, had continued to thrive until today?

And the story still holds some mysteries. The author found that historic documents that could prove corruption and deceit have been stolen from archives.

Details also bring the past to life. In two decades, electricity was transformed from a luxury for the few to a necessity for all. By 1947, electricity was in such short supply that Christmas lights in Portland were extinguished and two U.S. Navy destroyers docked in South Portland exported electricity from their diesel engines to Aroostook County.

In conclusion, the author writes the chapter “Who Killed Quoddy?” But there is also plenty of information in this account to allow readers to ponder their own theories.

It is fascinating that more than 100 years after obstructing the promise of vast power from the tides of eastern Maine, electric utilities still hold so much political power. Yet, the rules of the game have also altered. Damming water for power has been shown to negatively impact our environment.

The demand for kilowatts will soon double or triple for our new heat pumps and electric vehicles. Yet the tides still rise and fall every day as an untapped energy source. Will we find a way to work with the ocean for a green energy future? Here’s a compelling account of what can go wrong.

Dean Rykerson is president of the Tide Mill Institute, an organization dedicated to advancing the appreciation of tide mill technology. For more information, visit www.tidemillinstitute.org.

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“It was used in support of their part-time, smallscale fishing activities: lobstering, shellfishing, and gill netting,” it says. “Three owners operated nearby general stores, two others summer boarding houses. Four fish houses and wharfs were built on the eastern side of the Point for storage, repair of gear, and processing of catch.”

The property owners are “tenants in common,” which means each of them owns a share of the entire property and can sell or give away their share without permission from their co-owners, similar to shareholders in a company.

Fractional shares in the roughly one-third-acre parcel have been passed down through the generations, with Sylvester owning the largest share of about one-third of the property at the time he filed suit. Defendants named in the legal complaint own shares ranging from one-ninth to 1/36th of the site.

The lawsuit has drawn criticism from some area residents and a local working waterfront advocate who said such cases threaten the future viability of wharves that remain vital to small commercial fishing operations. The site is zoned for commercial fishing and is being used for that purpose by Penny Wilson’s husband, Mark Wilson, with permission from co-owner Brian J. Black.

Sylvester is asking the court to force Black and the other co-owners to sell their shares to him, arguing the property is “unmanaged, unsecured, and in deteriorating condition” with too many owners to manage effectively.

But Penny Wilson questioned why, after all these years, Sylvester decided it was necessary for him to take full ownership of the site.

“It’s disturbing to all of us,” she said. Sylvester’s legal complaint describes a property what he claims is marked by disrepair because of disuse and neglect.

“After 130 years, the original use … no longer exists in practice, nor remains viable in concept,” the complaint says. “There is no communication or interaction among dispersed owners dealing with the management, use, and security of the property.”

It adds that uncontrolled access and use of the site by non-owners and visitors poses a liability risk to the property owners, and that the property’s low tax burden and revenue potential have given the inherited owners little incentive to invest in maintenance and repairs.

The lawsuit doesn’t deny that Barleyfield Point is used for fishing activities, but it says none of the site’s co-owners use it for commercial fishing.

In court filings, defendants dispute some of Sylvester’s claims and argue there is no compelling legal reason to force them to sell property their families have owned, used, and paid taxes on for generations.

Among the defendants is Gerald E. Stilphen, a Virginia resident who owns a 1/18th share and has asked the court to dismiss the case.

“I own my deeded 1/2 of 1/9 share as handed down to me from my grandfather through my father to me,” Stilphen wrote in a response to the complaint. “I pay my fair share of the property taxes each and every year. I regularly use this property that has been deeded to me.”

Property co-owners Joanne Choate, Mary Dee Grant, and Frederick B. Hatch III submitted a joint response to the court in June 2022, also asking it to dismiss the lawsuit.

“The property in question has served as a common area and should stay a common area,” their statement reads. “The sale of the property … would disproportionately provide more value to [him] as an owner of nearby land.”

Orr’s Island resident Monique Coombs said Barleyfield Point is one of many small, “discreet” working waterfront properties in Maine that are under constant threat of being lost.

Coombs is director of community programs for the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, an industryfunded nonprofit that seeks to preserve Maine’s fishing communities for future generations. She said there are many small properties in Maine like Barleyfield Point used by only one or two commercial fishermen, and that such sites are a dwindling resource in the state.

“Getting funding to protect them, or even understanding who to go to be able to conserve them, is incredibly difficult, and Barleyfield is one of those spaces,” Coombs said.

It’s not uncommon for such sites to be partially dilapidated, she said, because fixing them up is expensive, and there’s no public funding available. Still, Coombs said the solution isn’t to ask a court to kick property owners off their land.

“The other thing about those types of properties is that when they’re shut down and fishermen can’t use them anymore, it puts more pressure on the larger working waterfront properties,” she said.

Barleyfield Point is zoned “Commercial Fisheries I,” which means its owners would not be allowed to convert the property to something other than marine uses without being granted a zoning change by the town.

Still, Penny Wilson said she is aware of several locals, including her husband, who use Barleyfield Point for fishing at no cost, and it’s likely Sylvester would want those fishermen to start paying a fee to use it, if he let them use it at all.

“That cove has been open for everyone to use,” Penny Wilson said. “Nobody has ever told anyone that they can’t be on that point except for Jack Sylvester and his wife.”

A trial is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 29 in Portland.

This story first appeared in the Harpswell Anchor, a nonprofit online and print newspaper, and is reprinted with permission and gratitude. See HarpswellAnchor. org for more information.