Westbrook dam key to Presumpscot (River) fish restoration (Maine)

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/070220presumpscot.html

Efforts to restore sea-run fish habitat on the Presumpscot River now hinge on a single dam in Westbrook.

State officials announced last week they will hold an unprecedented public hearing this spring or summer to decide whether the owner of the Cumberland Mills Dam should be forced to install a fish ladder for alewives, shad, salmon and other fish.

If fish passage is provided at that dam -- now the first obstacle for fish swimming up from Casco Bay -- as many as five more upstream dams will have to provide fish passageways and open up spawning habitat that has been blocked off for more than 200 years.

"It really is the linchpin. If anything is going to happen, there has to be fish passage at the Cumberland Mills Dam," said Sean Mahoney, a Portland-based attorney who represents restoration advocates.

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[kestrel91316]

1. I love that name "alewives". No idea what they look like, but its

such a quaint old-timey name..............

[jpak]

2. They are members of the herring family

They were the first fish to run up many Maine rivers in the Spring - and were greatly valued by Abenakis and early European settlers.

More alewives for me please...

:hi: