Casper visited the area before the dam was breached. The focus specifically was on the carbon itself. We had to limit it to that. For comparison purposes, the researchers studied algae and bugs in the Augusta stretch of the river that is much shallower now, and they sampled deeper water behind Shawmut Dam, in Winslow, that holds back the Sebasticook River. Because algae require sunlight, Casper said the plants live close to the surface in Winslow, but can survive near the bottom of the Kennebec in Augusta now that the dam is gone.
Some algae also inhabit shoreline zones.
Those new habitats affect the algae's intake of carbon, an element that often combines with hydrogen and oxygen. Filter-feeding insects in and near the river eat algae, and the concentration of carbon in their body tissues was examined for the research paper. Predator insects, including stoneflies that eat filter-feeding bugs, were also sampled. Tissue in some species of insect-eating fish was studied as well. David Courtemanch, of the DEP's Bureau of Land and Water Quality, is also hitting the road to speak about the effects of the dam's dismantling on insect populations in the water.