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Kennebec Ice Jam Getting Worse Instead of Better

February 02, 2010 - GARDINER -- The hulking ice dam clogging the Kennebec River between Farmingdale and Randolph not only defied Coast Guard attempts to clear the river this weekend – it is also growing.

Richard Beausoleil, director of the Kennebec County Emergency Management Agency, said the jam that caused flooding in Augusta and Hallowell last week is frozen in place just above the Pearl Harbor Remembrance Bridge between Gardiner and Randolph.

More ice is building up behind it, he said, between Farmingdale and Augusta – although most of it is sheet ice, not massive chunks such as those in the jam.

"We have a lot of ice building up behind the jam," Beausoleil said Monday. "It's still packing up. We could have, before the end of winter, five, six, seven or more miles of ice up there."

Beausoleil met Monday with municipal officials and representatives of county and state emergency management agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Environmental Laboratory and the U.S. Geological Survey to discuss what can be done about the ice jam and potential for flooding.

The conclusion: not much. The fate of central Maine riverside communities is, they agreed, mostly up to the weather.

Lynette Miller, of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said the best-case scenario to avoid flooding would be a gradual warm-up, which would allow the ice in the approximately mile-and-a-half long jam to "rot" in place.

By KEITH EDWARDS, Kennebec Journal February 2, 2010


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