Electric Tides

(Updated April 2026)

In 1920, a civil engineer described an ambitious plan to Franklin D. Roosevelt. His idea was to harness the massive tides of Passamaquoddy Bay to produce hydro electricity. The two spent years pushing for the project but were unable to get much traction. When FDR became President in 1933, he green-lit the project and the Quoddy Hydro Project began.

Tides Are Extremely Renewable

People have been generating power from tides since as far back as the 6th century. Tides never stop, so why not use them? Tidal dams were typically used on a small scale – think running a water wheel for a mill. At one point, 750 tide mills were in operation along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. They were a fairly common sight through the 1800s.

The Bay of Fundy

The Bay of Fundy has the largest tides in the world – up to 50 feet. Passamaquoddy Bay, one of Fundy’s inlets, sees more than 70 billion cubic feet of water flowed in and out of the bay twice each day. That’s a lot of potential power.

Origins

A Minnesota native named Dexter Cooper came up with the Quoddy Hydro idea. Dexter was a civil engineer who had worked on various hydro projects, including the Keokuk Dam on the Mississippi River. He was visiting his future wife’s family on Campobello Island (part of New Brunswick just across from Eastport, Maine). While there, he witnessed the famous Fundy tides and had a crazy thought. But he needed a lot of help to turn that thought into action. If only he knew someone. Someone with a good Rolodex.

Well, it turns out that his future mother-in-law knew someone like that. She just happened to be neighbors with Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR was the Assistant Secretary of the US Navy at the time and would become President 13 years later. He and his wife Eleanor spent quite a bit of time at their summer home on Campobello Island and were introduced to Dexter Cooper in 1920.

Dexter described his hydro idea to FDR and convinced him that there was huge potential in the constant flow of water in the bay. FDR liked it so much he even endorsed the idea in a speech he gave in 1920 in Eastport while he was a candidate for vice president. He lost that election to the Harding ticket and a year later, he lost the use of his legs from polio.

The Plan

The plan was to dam the Bay of Fundy by building causeways and dams in strategic places – like between islands. They would build a total of seven dams in the Bay and would even connect Eastport and Lubec. But how would this generate power?

Water would be allowed to flow in through the dam gates during high tide. Then the dams would be closed, holding massive amounts of water back. When the tides receded, the higher water being held would be released through turbines, generating power. In fact, it could generate enough to power most of Maine. What a plan, right?

Backlash

It turns out that not everyone liked the plan. First, the Passamaquoddy Bay is mostly Canadian water, so it required coordination and approval from two countries. Some said it would affect the fish and would hinder boating. Big utilities like Central Maine Power and Bangor Hydro-Electric complained that it would be unfair. Everyone knew it would be very expensive. In fact, a Federal Power Commission report determined that tidal power would be more expensive than steam-generated power.

But FDR and Dexter Cooper kept lobbying for the project. FDR became Governor of NY in 1929 but didn’t forget the Quoddy plan. He also continued to vacation on Campobello Island and spend time around Eastport.

FDR and the WPA

FDR won the 1932 Presidential election while the country was deep in the Great Depression. While in office, FDR created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The purpose of the WPA was to create jobs by carrying out a dizzying number of public works projects. President Roosevelt asked staff to find new projects to fund. Over an 8 year period, they employed over 8 million people and produced buildings, roads, bridges, housing, airports, dams, and much more all over the country.

Rural Washington County, Maine needed a lifeline but the State of Maine really couldn’t afford the project on its own. Republican Governor Ralph Brewster said he’d support the project in his state if he got a little something back from the Democrats (which irked them). Quoddy needed Federal funding or the project would die.

Who Needs Congress?

Once he got in to the Oval Office, FDR was able to push some pet projects. It turns out that the President was able to allocate up to $7 Million without getting approval from Congress. So, he went ahead and authorized the funds to start the Quoddy Project. The full project was estimated to cost $36 million, so he was hoping that the pilot phase would be successful and that Congress would jump aboard the Quoddy train.

What Was Actually Built?

On July 4th, 1935, Eastport and Lubec residents came out to celebrate the start of construction with a parade and fireworks in Eastport.

With the initial $7 million allocation, the Army Corp of Engineers set to work. They blasted rock and bulldozed material. Very quickly, they built two dams across Cobscook Bay, a two-way navigation lock, a gate structure, a main generating station, train tracks, and an entire village called Quoddy Village to provide temporary and permanent housing. You can read all about the Village over here.

Shut Down

The project ended much quicker than it had begun. A year after the fireworks and parade kicked off the project, the initial $7 Million was gone. Congress voted not to renew funding which meant the project was dead. Work immediately ceased in August 1936. The Army Corp of Engineers then set out to dismantle the very things they had just built. The dams, generating station, and train tracks were removed. The town of Eastport, which was counting on the project, declared bankruptcy.

Quoddy Village was left, and ended up being reused for a few purposes. First it was used as a training facility for the National Youth Administration (another WPA project). Then when the US entered WW2, it was used as a Navy SeaBee training base. Eventually, most of the buildings were removed (or burned) and the Village is now a residential neighborhood.

Other Hydro Projects in the Bay

Even though the Quoddy Hydro project never really amounted to much, the idea of generating power from the Fundy tides still has its supporters.

The Annapolis Royal Generating Station in Nova Scotia operated from 1984-2019. It was able to generate a significant amount of power while operational, but it was shut down in 2019 after a cruicial component failed. This was the final straw because the station had long been controversial. It turns out that some of the arguments made against Quoddy proved to be valid. The Annapolis Station was indeed killing loads of fish, was causing bank erosion, and was trapping marine life. In fact, a mature humpback was stuck in the river for days after it got through the sluice gates. That’s not good for PR.

More recently, a number of projects have been proposed and some have actually been generating power off the coast of Nova Scotia. Some are fixed towers while some are floating turbines.

ORPC, based in Portland, installed underwater turbines off Eastport starting in 2007 and provided power to the Coast Guard Station. Their modular RivGen product has even been tested inland in the Millinocket Stream. And just last month (October 2024), the US granted a preliminary permit to developers for the construction of a tidal power dam in Cobscook Bay. But this project, like many before it, face considerable opposition.

April 2026 Update

In February 2026, ORPC (mentioned above) proposed a $241 million 51-megawatt underwater tidal energy and subsea data center off Kendall’s Head. It would include 170 turbines mounted in “docking cradles” and 34 pods of AI-computer server racks.