To Harness the Quoddy

For years Passamaquoddy has been a long Indian name for a dormant idea. Last week President Kennedy called it "one of the most astonishing and beneficial joint enterprises that the people of the U.S. have ever undertaken." With Canada as a junior partner, the U.S. again will aim to harness the 18-ft. ocean tides of Passamaquoddy Bay on the Maine border and use them to generate electric power for New England, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (see map). The project, said an Interior Department report, would do "as much for New England as Grand Coulee Dam has done for the Pacific Northwest."

Charges of Boondoggling. Power men have long dreamed of putting the great "Quoddy" to work. In 1919 a Boston engineer named Dexter Parshall Cooper drew up a plan that would require an estimated $150 million in private capital. That idea collapsed with the 1929 market crash. Then in 1935 Franklin D. Roosevelt--best known summer visitor to neighboring Campobello Island--started boosting the Quoddy and actually got $7,000,000 from Congress to start the project. But F.D.R.'s hopes died too, amid Republican charges of "boondoggling on the Quoddy." Two years ago a U.S.Canadian International Joint Commission completed a study--this one for $3,000,000--and called the idea totally uneconomic.

But now, thanks to new refinements in turbines and the economies of extra-high-voltage transmission, the engineers think the Quoddy's tides can be economically tamed. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall's plan--modeled on Cooper's 44-year-old proposal--calls for 71 miles of dams that will trap and control some 70 billion cu. ft. of sea water that floods into the Quoddy and Cobscook Bays with each tide. At high tide the water will flow into a "high pool" in Quoddy Bay. Then once a day during the period of "peak" power demand (from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.), locks will swing open and a wall of water will cascade through giant turbines into a "low pool" in Cobscook Bay, generating 1,000,000 kw. of power.

Electricity for All. Construction will take 15 years, and the initial cost will be steep--more than $1 billion, including the tab for a 250,000-kw. generating station on the upper St. John River. The whole cost will be borne by the U.S. But proponents believe that the eventual usage will make it worthwhile. New England and Canada's Maritime provinces currently pay 6.36 mills per kw-h for power; Quoddy power, it is said, will cost only 4 mills per kwh. The vast complex of dams and locks should draw an army of tourists and have an important effect on industrial development on both sides of the line.

Last week President Kennedy ordered Army engineers to work up final details for an Administration request to Congress. He planned it for 1964, but Maine's ever-eager Congressmen announced that they will introduce legislation this year. The Canadians were no less anxious. Prime Minister Lester Pearson enthusiastically promised "immediate consideration."

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