Conservation & Environment

April 6, 2013 — When the World Trade Organization found last year that U.S. labeling requirements for dolphin-safe tuna put Mexican tuna fishermen at a trade disadvantage, marine advocates worried that the federal government would weaken its dolphin-safe standards.

Instead, a proposed rule published Friday by the National Marine Fisheries Service would expand the certification requirements.

In the eastern tropical Pacific — which roughly extends from San Diego west to Hawaii and south to Peru — dolphins and large yellowfin tuna swim together in closely packed schools. To catch tuna in that part of the world, fishing fleets chase dolphins and encircle them with huge nets, known as purse seines, to gather the tuna below.

Although techniques have been developed to let dolphins escape the nets near the surface, chase and encircle can be lethal for the marine mammals. Tuna caught in that manner cannot be labeled dolphin-safe, a condition that sparked the trade complaints from Mexico.

The government’s answer to the dispute is to expand some of the dolphin-safe conditions it has imposed on purse seine fishing in the eastern Pacific that doesn’t employ chase and encircle.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

 

 

April 3, 2013 — The following was released on behalf of the Northeast Regional Planning Body by the Meridian Institute

On behalf of the Northeast Regional Planning Body (NE RPB), we want to share information related to developing draft goals for regional ocean planning in the Northeast. In March, each governmental sector represented on the NE RPB (i.e., tribal, state, NEFMC, and federal) initiated the process of identifying draft goals for regional ocean planning. Results will be discussed further at the NE RPB on April 11-12. Follow this link to find a summary of the initial governmental sector discussions along with Goal Setting Guidance that was distributed to all RPB members to aid in the discussions.   Please refer to this regional ocean planning news site and the RPB meeting page for updates like these in the future.

The April 11-12 meeting will take place at the Village Inn in Narragansett, Rhode Island.  If you are interested in attending and have not already registered, please do so by clicking here. The meeting agenda is now available on the NE RPB website and additional meeting materials will also be posted early next week. 

Public Engagement

The NE RPB is committed to robust public engagement and welcomes input on the draft goals it will discuss during its April 11-12 meeting. In addition, the public will also be invited to participate in a series of public meetings at the end of May/early June to collect input on a set of draft goals. These meetings will be widely advertised and held in each New England state, with draft products (e.g., maps, project summaries, and others) also presented for discussion/review.

 

March 26, 2013 — After 6-1/2 years of heavy political pressure, a pair of national rallies, and promises by more than a dozen respected members of Congress, U.S. saltwater anglers are perplexed at the lack of legislative movement to protect sensible access to coastal fisheries. Sadly, since the reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Act in late 2006, a number of debilitating fisheries facts have come to reality:

– Since switching over from traditional days-at-sea limits to sector management in 2010, New England's cod fishery has collapsed with legislation recently introduced to help defray the cost of a $150 million fisheries disaster.
– After implementing the individual fishing quota plan for the Gulf of Mexico in 2007, recreational anglers have also watched their number of available fishing days for Gulf red snapper drop by over 80%. New legislation has been introduced to allow Gulf States to expand territorial waters to make up for federal issues.
– Anglers in the South Atlantic have been able to fish for red snapper a total of six days ever since the federal government extended a ban on red snapper fishing in federal waters off North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and the Atlantic coast of Florida in 2010.
– Despite its healthy, rebuilt status since the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in late 2006, recreational harvest of black sea bass in federal waters in January and February was officially shut down in 2009. Available fishing days for black sea bass have been on average 50% less in the days since black sea bass was rebuilt as compared to seasons prior. On the above facts alone, many coastal legislators have acknowledged and accepted the fact that our federal fisheries law has strayed from its original intent – to foster vibrant American fisheries where both commercial and recreational fishermen alike can achieve the best possible annual yield of harvest while promoting healthy fish stocks. Key changes to this draconian fisheries management today brought about by heavy influence of environmental groups like Pew Charitable Trusts and Environmental Defense Fund have led to widespread fishing closures.

While organizations like the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) have lobbied on behalf of their members to amend the federal fisheries law to provide a better balance of commerce and conservation in the name of sustainable access, groups like Pew have built partnerships to oppose any congressional reform efforts.

Recently, Pew Environment Group's Lee Crocket announced what he called "a significant move," as the American Bluefin Tuna Association (ABTA) and the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) officially signed on as partners with Pew "to protect bluefin tuna, one of the most amazing fish in the sea. By working together, we might be able to help ensure a brighter future for this depleted fish."

According to RFA founder and executive director Jim Donofrio, untangling the Pew web of deceit is a full-time task, made harder whenever Magnuson Stevens is up for review. "Just about every time I sit down with a member of Congress to ask for a reasonable change in the management process to protect anglers, DC staffers will say 'oh Pew was just here and they said they're partnering with anglers who don't support any changes to the law.'"

Donofrio said it should be no mystery that these new Pew partnerships typically become public about the time that Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization debate is underway.

"Congress is looking to reauthorize our federal fisheries law this year and once again all the Pew chess pieces are being moved around the board. Their Marine Fish Conservation Network has turned off their phones and scrubbed their website, while Pew is now announcing new partnerships with groups like the IGFA and ABTA, so yes I'd say the greenwashing is underway just in time for the Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization debate in Congress," Donofrio added.

RFA said as the leading opponent of 'management flexibility' and most ardent supporter of more restrictive anti-fishing measures, Pew's new partnerships on a single-issue cause are not as much about bluefin protection as they are about bolstering the credibility in Congress leading up to reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

"These are the same political operatives who are on a mission to create 15 massive marine sanctuaries before 2020, the same showroom environmentalists who have spearheaded an international network of no-access marine reserves as they have on the West Coast of the United States and near the Northeast Hawaiian Islands," Donofrio said.

"Yes, RFA has legitimate concerns with surface long-lining in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly as it relates to by-catch, but partnering with Pew as the IGFA and ABTA have done is simply exchanging bluefin tuna protection for overall coastal access to red snapper, black sea bass, summer flounder and other inshore species. It's nothing but a deal with the devil," he added.

Donofrio said RFA has a long track record of supporting time and area longline closures in the Gulf of Mexico, and said that regional response to the Pew/ABTA/IGFA partnership announcement has been understandably distrustful. "RFA has history fighting in opposition to the efforts by former purse-seine lobbyist Rich Ruais against bluefin tuna quota for our recreational sector, and that was before he went on to represent the longliners at Bluewater Fishermen's Association where we again debated him frequently in defense of RFA members, the individual saltwater anglers," Donofrio said.

It was RFA that originally brokered a deal to get the purse seiners to agree to stop harvesting yellowfin tuna in 1998 when Donofrio was working side-by-side Peter Wiess to wrestle the seiners' control over the fishery when Ruais was lobbyist. "Regardless of any personal angles which might be achieved by working directly with Pew, recreational fishermen would be wise to pull their public support of ABTA before it's too late," he added.

Donofrio noted that whatever individual cause that Pew Environment Group pledges support in order to attract new partners, it's the organization's ultimate goal which should raise concerns.

"Pew has made it very clear their overall mission is to create a global network of at least 15 no take marine sanctuaries, which means reduced fishing pressure and lost access for fishermen, and that's the bottom line," Donofrio said. "Pew has the financial resource to get within reach of their goal, they just need a few supporting partners to help them clear the final hurdles."

Donofrio said that less than two months into his swearing in as U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry called for the establishment of new marine sanctuaries in parts of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica while at a March 18th event hosted by Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C.

"Hard to believe that only 2 years ago Mr. Ruais claimed that Pew was running NOAA, controlling the Obama administration and forcing radical approaches to bluefin management," Donofrio said, adding "since ABTA is now willing to partner with the preservationists, perhaps they won't be so quick to fight RFA's efforts to secure inter-category bluefin quota transfer to allow more sustainable hook and line harvest of bluefin in the recreational sector."

SALEM, New Hampshire —  March 27, 2013 — The American Bluefin Tuna Association and the Pew Charitable Trust have not always seen eye to eye in the past on issues regarding bluefin tuna. In fact, no fishery organization has a longer history of fighting for its survival against the environmental establishment, and for good reason: no fishery issue within the environmental community has received more attention than has bluefin.

What has recently changed that has led ABTA to consider working with Pew? Two important things: 1/ For the first time, Pew has openly acknowledged something that the fishermen have been saying for a very long time; that US bluefin tuna handgear fishermen do fish sustainably, using selective gear, and, 2/ Pew and ABTA find that they are largely in agreement on a comprehensive approach to a recent and critically important regulatory initiative, Amendment 7. This marks the first time that both organizations agree on the same approach to an important bluefin issue.
Amendment 7 focuses on bluefin bycatch and dead discards in the pelagic longline fishery. There is a very real threat that rulemaking on Amendment 7 will result in a dramatic restructuring of the bluefin fishery as we know it today, resulting in quota share being taken away from the bluefin tuna handgear fishermen and given to the longline fleet in order to cover highly excessive bluefin bycatch and discards. This is completely unacceptable to ABTA.

ABTA’s mission is “to protect the fishery”. ABTA’s commitment is to the traditional bluefin handgear fishery and to the resource. No industry association has spent more time, money or effort in working toward these goals which benefit all sectors of the bluefin handgear fishery.

So, when ABTA received a request to join forces with Pew and the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) on Amendment 7, ABTA had to take this very seriously. Why? Up to that point, ABTA was prepared to “go it alone” on the issue of Amendment 7, but ABTA realized that this strategy was dangerous given the formidable opposition it is facing.

First, there is Blue Water, the US longline organization. BWFA has tendered comprehensive written comments to NMFS, advocating for a complete restructuring of the traditional bluefin fishery that would result in bluefin handgear fishermen sacrificing their traditional allocation so that longline fishermen could continue to incur present unacceptably high levels of bluefin bycatch and discards. One such letter, written by the Executive Director of Blue Water on October 29, 2012, summarizes their position. i

In the letter, Blue Water urges the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to first use US bluefin quota to “…cover the incidental, accidental catches of BFT caught by (longline) fishermen while targeting other species before allocating directed quota.” Blue Water then explains, “If sufficient residual quota is available, then NMFS could allow for directed BFT fishing.” Finally, Blue Water reiterates that, “NMFS should prioritize year-round incidental fisheries over seasonal directed fisheries with respect to fish with very limited quotas, such as BFT.” In other words, Blue Water is openly advocating for NMFS to establish rulemaking under Amendment 7 that will first give the longline fishery all the quota that is needed to cover bluefin bycatch and discards, and only that quota which remains (if any) is to be allocated for the use of the historic handgear fishery. These proposals, along with others put forward by Blue Water made it clear to ABTA that it must use every avenue possible to put forth its own comprehensive plan for protecting the bluefin handgear fishery in the debate over Amendment 7. (See the Letter to NMFS from Terri Beideman, Executive Director, Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, October 29, 2012. To view this document, click on this link: http://www.theabta.com/CurrentActions.html)

Secondly, NMFS is currently under direction from ICCAT to ensure that all sources of bluefin mortality in the US fishery—including bycatch and discards—are covered by the overall US quota. ABTA must fight any attempt by NMFS to bring the US into compliance with these directives without simultaneously putting in place regulations that dramatically reduce bycatch and discards of bluefin in the longline fishery. Should NMFS fail to put in place a comprehensive bycatch reduction plan, this will set back, and potentially endanger, the rebuilding of the Atlantic bluefin stock, a rebuilding program that has been embraced, and not without great sacrifice, by US bluefin fishermen from its inception. Equally importantly, the absence of a significant bycatch reduction plan by NMFS would likely result in bluefin handgear fishermen losing quota.

ABTA believes that NMFS has a vested interest in ensuring that the longliners win this battle. NMFS’s “Swordfish Revitalization Policy”, intended to promote utilization of the US swordfish quota, could conflict with any comprehensive longline bycatch reduction policy. Elevating this revitalization policy over conservation through meaningful bycatch and discard reduction can only be achieved at the expense of the the traditional user groups that utilize more sustainable fishing methods. ABTA believes that real steps could be taken to allow for the longline fleet to catch swordfish while avoiding excessive bluefin byctach, it would be far easier for NMFS to solve its problem by converting longline discards to landings and by providing the longline category with sufficient quota to cover these landings. Again, this would be at the expense of the traditional fishery and the resource.

The proposal to join forces with the Pew was thoroughly vetted and carefully evaluated by the ABTA Executive Committee. With the aggressive stance taken by Blue Water, and the concerns over NMFS’ position, it became clear that ABTA, and the fishery is represents, is in a fight for survival, and that every possible step must be taken to win this battle. The entire executive committee of ABTA realized that it was looking at the very real possibility of a dramatic reduction of historical quota share for commercial handgear and recreational fishermen, and this was considered unacceptable under any circumstances.

The coalition that has been put together to work on Amendment 7 and to support the fishermen cannot guarantee victory, but all three organizations realize that they are worth more together than they would be if they each employed a “go it alone” strategy. This partnership is only about the singular goal of ensuring that traditional handgear bluefin fishermen prevail under Amendment 7. There are no other motives and there is no intent to influence larger fishery management issues, notwithstanding some allegations in this regard. The bottom line is that in order to win this battle, ABTA needs all the help it can get.

About Amendment 7

Amendment 7 is about bycatch and dead discards of bluefin tuna in the US swordfish and yellowfin longline fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Atlantic Coast.

Why Amendment 7 ? According to ICCAT directive No. 10-3 (2010), all forms of Atlantic bluefin mortality must be accounted for within the quota of all member- countries to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) that fish for Atlantic bluefin. All forms of bluefin mortality refer to all catch, bycatch, and dead discards of Atlantic bluefin tuna. The US has had an excellent record of compliance with ICCAT quota up to the present. However, until recently, excessive bycatch and dead discards of Atlantic bluefin have not been fully accounted for by NMFS under the US quota because, until recently, this has not been required by ICCAT.

What is the problem with longlining and Atlantic bluefin? Pelagic longlining in the US is not legally allowed to “target” Atlantic bluefin. However, this fishing method, which involves deploying a longline of up to 35 miles in length and containing many hundreds of hooks, cannot help incurring bycatch of over 40 species of fish and mammals, including Atlantic bluefin. US longlining is only legally allowed to “target” swordfish or yellowfin tuna. However, as a concession to the longliners, NMFS has in the past accorded the longline category, 8.1% of the total annual US Atlantic bluefin tuna quota, plus an additional annual quantity of 25 MT for discards occurring in the Northeast Distant Fishery (NED) to cover bluefin bycatch in the longline fishery. If the present excessive bycatch and dead discards are taken fully into account, as is now reqired by ICCAT, this 8.1% allocation pluse the 25 MT NED allotment is woefully inadquate. Simply put, the current 8.1% equates to about 75 MT, however longline landings and discards of bluefin have averaged about 250 MT of a 3-year period (2008-2010). So, whose fish (quota) are NMFS going to take to make up the difference?

What does the law have to say about bycatch and dead discards? There is a mandate in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act, a mandate in the ICCAT charter and a mandate in no less than 4 United Nations resolutions for the dramatic reduction of bycatch and dead discards in any fishery in which it is incurred.

What does NMFS intend to do about this? It is NMFS’ intention to not address these mandates for the reduction of bycatch and dead discards. In the pre-draft of Amendment 7, NMFS has presented a list of alternatives for dealing with bycatch and dead discards in the longline fishery. These alternatives do not include a comprehensive plan for significant reduction of bycatch. Rather than attacking the problem by putting in place regulations that would result in the dramatic reduction of bycatch and discards, it appears NMFS intends to “sanction” and “legalize” bluefin bycatch and discards by simply allowing all bycatch and discards to be retained and “landed”. In effect, bycatch and discards would become legitimate “catch”. Given that the present longline allocation of 8.1% is inadequate for this purpose, it will likely take allocation away from other fishing categories and give this quota to the longliners. In this situation, Atlantic bluefin tuna fishermen who fish sustainably with rod and reel or harpoon, catching one fish at a time, and without incurring bycatch or incurring damage to the ecosystem, would be required to reduce their catch to allow for the “legalization” of illegal bycatch and discards in the longline fishery.

What about conservation and Amendment 7? The only provision in the predraft of Amendment 7 that is aimed at an actual reduction of Atlantic bluefin bycatch and discards is a proposal to implement time-area closures in areas where longline vessels have incurred bycatch in the past (“hotspots”). While time area closures do have potential to reduce bycatch, they must be continually evaluated over time to be effective. Time-area closures will only be an effective tool for a reduction of bycatch when combined with bycatch caps and 100% at-sea monitoring (which can be done either with fishery observers or video monitoring). Unfortunately, this is not even an option in the pre-draft of Amendment 7. Presently, only 8% of the fishing conducted by the Atlantic longline fleet operates with observer coverage.

Unless Amendment 7 includes a drastic increase in monitoring over the woefully inadequate level of 8%, there is little hope that Amendment 7 will achieve any meaningful levels of conservation.

What does ABTA want to do? ABTA wants to maintain the existing longline quota allocation of 8.1% and put in place meaningful measures to ensure conservation through the reduction of excessive bycatch and discards of Atlantic bluefin. The only way to achieve this is by monitoring of catch/bycatch of longline vessels through 100% observer coverage along with other measures, such as bycatch caps, to ensure that the bycatch and discards levels are kept in check. This will address ICCAT’s recent ruling and will address the mandates in Magnuson-Stevens, by ICCAT and by the United Nations for the reduction of bycatch and discards.

For further information, contact Rich Ruais:

Email: rruais@aol.com
Office: (603) 898-8862
Cell: (603) 490-4715
Site: http://www.theabta.com

For ABTA’s official position on Amendment 7, see the document entitled, “March 2013, ABTA Position Paper on NMFS Amenndment 7 on Bluefin Bycatch and Discards in the Longline Fishery” at the following link: http://www.theabta.com/CurrentActions.html

CHATHAM, Mass., — On a recent fishing trip around Monomoy Island, Orleans fisherman Bill Amaru and his crew counted 4,000 gray seals that had hauled out on the island's sandy beaches.

"The seals were 15 to 20 deep in three separate haul-outs," Amaru told an audience of more than 240 people at a daylong seal symposium Saturday at Chatham High School. If seals are in the water 80 to 90 percent of the time, Amaru said, that means a lot more seals than are being counted.

Local fishermen have been complaining for years that seals have been eating their fish, especially lately when fishing regulations cut fish quotas by as much as 77 percent because they were at low population levels.

While the experts still don't know the exact number of gray seals in our waters, the latest stock assessment from the National Marine Fisheries Service estimated gray seals on the Cape and Islands at 15,756 in 2011 as compared with 5,611 in 1999. On one day in April 2011, researchers counted more than 10,000 seals hauled out on Monomoy alone.

"There are so many of them out there that they can redirect a whole biomass of fish to the point where we can't catch them," Chatham weir fisherman Ernie Eldredge said. "Lots of people ask why they can't catch a striped bass off the beach, and they just have to look at what is patrolling that beach.

The seal symposium, sponsored by the Friends of Pleasant Bay, the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies and Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association, was intended to share research with the public and begin policy discussions among fishermen, town officials and other decision-makers. The groups also hoped to identify critical research topics and funding sources.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times

 

CHATHAM, Mass. — March 24, 2013 — In the tale of the return of the seal population to Cape Cod, the point where a positive becomes a problem depends on how you look at a colony of seals. Fisherman look at them as competition. Sharks look at them as calories. And the public looks at them in all sorts of ways, from a reason to go to a particular beach, to a reason not to.

On Saturday in the auditorium of the high school in Chatham, the various stakeholders in the seal story gathered for what was billed as the Outer Cape Seal Symposium ­— scientists, fishermen, and captains of seal tourism boats — to discuss what is known about the animals’ exploding population, what needs to be known, and what can or should be done about it.

At the moment, not much can be done. Bounties ended in the early 1960s, and the animals have been protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 1972. Any efforts to thin the population would require a change in federal law that allows for the killing of a much-adored animal.

“It would be political suicide for anybody to say, ‘We’ve got to get rid of them, we’ve got to cull them out,’ ” said Ernie Eldredge, a weir fisherman in Chatham who watches more and more seals steal more and more fish out of his traps each year. “But I don’t think we can allow the population to go unchecked. We can’t just resolve ourselves to the idea that nothing will be done about it and we’re going to have to go out of business.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

 

March 24, 2013 — In 1991, researchers counted six seal pups on Muskeget Island just northwest of Nantucket. In 2007 they counted 2,096.

That, in a nutshell, describes the trigger for this past Saturday's Outer Cape Seal Symposium. More than 200 scientists, fishermen, and other people involved in coastal activities gathered at the Chatham High School auditorium to learn, share, and work on a process for dealing with what can, at times, seems like a fish-eating flippered invasion.

Protected Mammals or Nuisance Animals?

From the 1880s until the 1960s, both Maine and Massachusetts used a bounty system to keep the state's fishing grounds seal-free. With a $1-5 payout for each seal nose turned in, hunters decimated the population of the region's gray and harbor seals.

With the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, the seals' status changed from pest to protected, although many in the fishing community continue to see the pinnipeds as a threat. Fishermen warn that infect fish with parasitic cod worms, steal fish from nets, weirs, and lines, compete for fish, and disrupts fish spawning.

Here to Stay

The first presentation of the morning left no doubt that gray seals have arrived and thrived. Lisa Sette from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies presented research that shows a healthy – and booming – northwest Atlantic seal population stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia.

Seals mature at the age of four and produce a pup a year. Seal bones and pelts appear in Native Amerian middens in the northeast, providing hints of historical range. With prime seal haul-out habitat like the sandy beaches of Muskeget Island and Monomoy protected and hunting outlawed, these adaptable and fast-breeding mammals have been returning to that range en masse.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Today

 

 

March 20, 2013 — It’s not every day that fishermen and environmentalists agree. But in a significant move, the American Bluefin Tuna Associationand the International Game Fish Association are partnering with The Pew Charitable Trusts to protect bluefin tuna, one of the most amazing fish in the sea. By working together, we might be able to help ensure a brighter future for this depleted fish.

U.S. fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency responsible for fisheries management, should seize this opportunity to protect bluefin tuna from dying needlessly on surface longlines. 



This wasteful fishing gear stretches for 30 miles on average — a length equal to 528 football fields, dangling hundreds of baited hooks. Surface longlines are used to catch yellowfin tuna and swordfish, but they catch and kill bluefin and approximately 80 other species of ocean wildlife. Most of these animals are thrown overboard, dead or dying. Because the Gulf of Mexico is the only known spawning area for western Atlantic bluefin, NOAA’s proposed regulations should prohibit the use of surface longlines in the Gulf and encourage more selective alternative fishing gear.

The American Bluefin Tuna Association is a diverse organization made up of commercial, charter, and recreational fishermen, shoreside businesses, fish buyers, and many others from Maine to Florida involved in the U.S. bluefin fishery. The International Game Fish Association is a not-for-profit recreational fishing organization committed to the conservation of game fish and the promotion of responsible, ethical angling practices through science, education, rule-making, and record keeping. Thanks to this important opportunity presented by the proposed bluefin regulations, we have come together to work toward a common goal.

Read the full story from The Pew Charitable Trusts

 

 

BANGOR, Maine — March 19, 2013 — Two citizen conservation groups last week asked a federal judge to order the temporary shutdown of hydroelectric turbines that they say will threaten thousands of endangered Atlantic salmon when those fish try to migrate out of the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers this spring.

According to a press release from the two groups — Environment Maine and Friends of Merrymeeting Bay — the organizations filed a motion on Thursday for a temporary injunction in U.S. District Court in an Endangered Species Act case against defendants NextEra Energy Resources LLC, FPL Energy Maine Hydro LLC, and affiliated companies.

At issue are turbines at the Weston Dam in Skowhegan, Shawmut Dam in Fairfield and Lockwood Dam in Waterville — all on the Kennebec River — and the Brunswick Dam on the Androscoggin River.

Read the full story at The Bangor Daily News