The "Quoddy" project was envisioned at a time when electricity was an exploding industry —  like the internet for our generation, said the author. The concept was to generate electric power using the tides of Passamaquoddy Bay. Water from the rising tide was to be held back by massive dams and released through turbines. Initially, in the 1920s, the project architects wanted dams between the mainland and islands all the way from Lubec, Maine, to Letete, N.B. In the 1930s, they scaled down the plan to damming the waters on the U.S. side, in Cobscook and South bays. It still would have been the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, said Borton, and could have changed Charlotte County in New Brunswick and Washington County in Maine forever.