REPORT FROM MAINE
Cyrus C. Babb
District Engineer Maine State Water-Storage Commission
The two principal resources of the State of Maine are its forests and its water-powers. Of its total area of 30,000 square miles, 21,000 square miles, or 70 percent are in forest lands. Over 1500 lakes and ponds are located in the State, covering 2200 square miles of water surface, and not including the innumerable little ponds of an acre or two in area that are located in all directions. There are in the State one lake to each 20 square miles of territory, and one square mile of lake surface to each 14.3 square miles of territorial area.
Although the State ranks 35 in area, and 30 in population, it ranks third in the Union in water-power development, having, according to the U. S. Census, a total of over 343,000 horsepower in use. It is surpassed only by New York and California in total horsepower.
The State has always conserved its water-power. The Supreme Judicial Court of the State has held as follows:
It is a rule of law peculiar to this State and Massachusetts under the Colonial Ordinance of 1641-7 that all great ponds—that is ponds containing more than 10 acres—are owned by the State.
While private property cannot be taken for public use without compensation, the waters of great ponds and lakes are not private property.
Under the ordinance, the State owns the ponds as public property held in trust for public uses. It has not only the jus privatum, the ownership of the soil, but also the jus publicum, and the right to control and regulate the public uses to which the ponds shall be applied.
The authority of the State to control waters of great ponds and determine the uses to which they may be applied is a governmental power, and the governmental powers of the State are never lost by mere non-use.
Early Investigation
Maine has always been in the forefront in the investigation and conservation of its resources. Thirty years before the National Government authorized its first geological investigations, and over forty years before the Federal Geological Survey was established, the State of Maine had made such a survey. By Act of the State Legislature, March 28, 1836, a geological survey of the State was authorized under the direction of Dr Charles T. Jackson, State Geologist. The investigation was continued for three years. The results of this geological survey, considering the difficulties of transportation at that time and the non-existence of accurate maps, are interesting.
A detail survey and report on the natural history and geology of the State was made in 1861 and 1862 by Ezekiel Holmes, Naturalist, and C. H. Hitchcock, Geologist. Reports were made on the zoology and botany of the State, but the most interesting and detailed reports treated of the geological resources.
A hydrographic survey of the State was authorized by the Legislature as early as 1867. The resulting report of Mr Walter Wells is considered as authority even to the present day.