EMAILTPL1

      It’s been about a month since the ice jam on the St John River caused the nearby town of Perth-Andover, New Brunswick to flood in historic proportions. Local blame swirls around suspicions of NB Power’s downstream 60-year-old Beechwood hydroelectric dam and the freakishly record warm spell we had in March. Devastated residents are still waiting for the deciders in the provincial government to determine whether their low-lying homes and businesses will be re-located up to higher ground.

     Virtually all of our Aroostook County, Maine is within the St. John watershed which means that if a raindrop falls in Aroostook it will eventually end up in the Bay of Fundy courtesy of the St John. For quite a ways up north, the St. John forms the boundary between Maine and Canada. At our latitude the international boundary lies to the west of the St John as the river begins to flow towards the southeast and entirely within Canada until it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The early European settlers, both the Acadian French and the English, primarily used the navigable St. John, and its tributaries such as the Aroostook River, to extend their settlements into the wilderness in order that future potato farmers would gain access to good ground where they could clear off the trees and grow their potato crops.

   Floods may be nothing new but unless you live in the north, the floods caused by ice jams may be beyond not only your own experience but also beyond your imagination. In the Spring, rapid snowmelt waters snake their way into the St. John and flow along with broken chunks of ice, some as large as boats. River obstructions like intact river ice, river narrows or bridges can be problematic when the ice begins to pile up and hold back the free flow of water. Classic ice blockage of the water flow, unprecedented in magnitude this year, caused St. John River flooding in Perth-Andover to be the worst on record.

   Ice jams on the St. John and the resulting flooding have certainly occurred before. One time, many years ago, the ice lodged up against the upstream side of a railroad bridge and the water and ice rapidly started to back up. One quick thinking official ordered a half dozen rail cars full of hundreds of tons of gravel to be rolled onto the bridge so as to anchor and provide weight against the mighty force of ice and water. The gamble paid off and the bridge held until the ice jam relieved itself, broke up, and let the backed-up water flow once again. That decisive steel-nerved official instantly became a local hero and a local legend.

     Things did not go so well with the flood on the St. John in the Spring of 1987. We’d had a deep snowpack that Winter and moderate snow-melting rains that began towards the end of March made for high water levels on all the local rivers. The result was rapid ‘thermal decay’ of the river ice which caused the ice pack to break up and move with the rapid flood waters. On the morning of April 2, the river of ice quickly began to back up and accumulate on the bottom chord of the Canadian Pacific rail road bridge spanning the St. John River in Perth-Andover. A student of local legends, perhaps with dreams of becoming a hero himself, gave the crisp order and six rail cars full of fertilizer were rushed into place on top of the bridge. Three hours after the ice jam had first formed against the bridge, the metal members of the bridge finally gave way to weary fatigue and unceremoniously crumpled and collapsed into the river taking along with it all those rail cars loaded with fertilizer.

   There is no certainty in dealing with nature. Decisions must be made, necessarily before the wisdom of those decisions, or the lack thereof, becomes evident.

     Now, another Spring is upon us and planting is just ahead. Not the work of heroes perhaps, but good work nonetheless.