June 30, 2013 — Here in the shadow of the Grand Falls Dam power house, the fish ladder is clear for alewives to climb, the boards that once prevented their passage having been taken away.
From the top of the ladder, the schooling fish have access to a staggering expanse of spawning, nursing, and feeding habitat: more than 65,000 acres of river, stream, and lake bottom straddling the Maine-New Brunswick border.
Those who fought to persuade Maine lawmakers to let the fish over the dam have high hopes that the species will kick-start the recovery of living systems laid low by past overfishing, dam building and water pollution.
"The alewife is the fish that feeds all," says Newell Lewey, a member of the Passamaquoddy tribal council, which supported free passage for the fish. "They are going to be beneficial for groundfish in Passamaquoddy Bay and for species inland, because they are food for others."
Now — despite weeks of heavy rain impeding their travels — thousands of fish are on the move up the St. Croix River system, thanks to a change of heart by the Maine Legislature, which just a few years ago had banned them from the river.
"I am pleased that the political atmosphere was in favor of the alewives," says Newell's tribal council colleague Ed Bassett, who traveled to Augusta to ask legislators to let the fish pass. "This time the facts won out and fiction lost."
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald