It's been a long time coming, but a coalition of conservation groups is now the proud owner of three dams on the Penobscot River. The sale by PPL Corporation to the Penobscot River Restoration Trust for $24 million caps a seven-year effort that will result in the demolition of two dams and a new fish bypass project at the third. And the landmark project will restore river habitat without any loss of hydropower generation.

Once the Great Works and Veazie Dams are torn down over the next two years and a fish bypass is installed at the Howland Dam, nearly 1,000 miles of Penobscot River habitat will be opened up to endangered Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, river herring and eight other species of sea-run fish.

Seven years ago, when the project was first unveiled, some skeptics called it a great idea but they didn't believe it would be possible to raise millions of dollars to purchase the dams and get conservation groups, the Penobscot Nation, cities, towns, regulatory agencies and dam owners on the same page or to make their much-trumpeted partnership last.

"It's great to work with people who are focused on how can we have all of the best from this river?" says Laura Rose Day of the Penboscot River Restoration Trust. "Not just hydropower, not just industry, but industry plus all the natural assets that this river can offer."

Rose Day says the partnership has not only lasted over the past seven years but it's blossomed. Some groups held bake sales to raise money for the project. Some foundations contributed million dollar gifts.

And when Pennsylvania-based PPL Corporation sold most of its Maine hydropower holdings to Black Bear Hydro Partners last year, the new buyer made the purchase, despite the fact that Atlantic salmon had just been listed as an endangered species on the river, and stuck to agreements that had been previously reached between PPL and the Trust.

"It's really a rather unique initiative that shows that business, community groups, environmental organizations and government agencies can work together toward a common cause that provides mutual benefits for everyone involved," says George Lewis, a spokesman for PPL, which still has hydropower operations in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Montana.

A spokesman for Black Bear Hydro could not be reached for comment. But Lewis says one of the unique parts of the agreement is that it allows for hydropower generation to be maintained at the same levels--and possibly increased--at nearby dams supported by all of the partners in the project. These include increasing energy at three dams and repowering the Orono Dam.

Mike Tetreault of the Nature Conservancy in Maine says the project is one of the most important his group is involved in in the country.

"It's groundbreaking for a lot of reasons," he says. "The first and foremost is probably that it's got this beautiful combination of keeping hydropower at the same or slightly increased levels while also increasing fish passage, which is something that's really hard to do. I think another part of it is just the sheer scale--it's huge in terms of the number of river miles that it will open, and so when our colleagues from around the country and around the world hear about this, they're always blown away."

Tetreault says among those who have come to Maine to check out the project is a delegation from China that is trying to figure out how to do hydropower production on the Yangtze River and still allow for healthy flood plains and fish populations.

It's a similar question Chief Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Indian Nation hoped would be answered during his lifetime. "We're extremely excited that we got to play a part in doing what we always said we wanted to do, and that is to protect and enhance the river and get it back to as close to its natural state as possible."

Francis says the cultural significance of the project has given his community hope. With the latest acquisition of the dams, the project is about halfway completed. Another $25 million will be needed to demolish the dams, the first of which is scheduled to be taken out next summer.