On a Wednesday in April, Flagstaff Lake was draining away.
When full, it is the state’s fifth largest freshwater body, nurturing a local tourist economy and providing boating and swimming opportunities for thousands of residents and others visiting Maine.
But on days like this — when the dam owner opens the sluiceways of the Long Falls Dam to generate power farther downstream — the lake begins to disappear, leaving behind thousands of acres of muddy and largely lifeless bottom. Docks are left high and dry and shorefront homes, camps and parks become isolated behind hundreds of yards of exposed, foul-smelling muck.