Kennebec River Diadromous Fish Restoration Project

• watershed narratives

Purpose

The goal of the Kennebec River Diadromous Fish Restoration Project is to restore Maine’s native diadromous fishes to their historic range and abundance in the watershed. These species include the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus), American shad (Alosa sapidissima), blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis), Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhinchus oxyrhinchus), shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum), rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), striped bass (Morone saxatilis), Atlantic tomcod (Microgadus tomcod), sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), and American eel (Anguilla rostrata).

Construction of Edwards Dam in 1837-1838 at the head-of-tide in Augusta coupled with overfishing and declining water quality caused dramatic declines in the abundance of these fishes in the watershed beginning in the mid-1800s.

Major restoration events

  • 1987 – First settlement agreement signed
  • 1998 – Second settlement agreement signed
  • 1987 – 1999 DMR stocks nearly 644,000 adult alewife and 8.4 million American shad fry into spawning and nursery habitat
  • 1999 – Removal of Edwards Dam
  • 2002 – Fish passage completed at Plymouth Pond Dam
  • 2002 – Guilford Dam removed
  • 2003 – Fish passage completed at Sebasticook Lake Dam
  • 2006 – Fishlift operational at Lockwood Project Dam
  • 2006 – Fishlift operational at Benton Falls Project Dam
  • 2006 – Fishlift operational at Burnham Project Dam
  • 2006 – Removal of Madison Electric Works Project Dam
  • 2009 – Removal of Fort Halifax Dam

In the early 1900s, alewives were used as a fertilizer, and as cat food. As recently as the 1950s, they were commonly eaten as smokers, a term Pierce said still has some currency among old-timers, who fondly remember the New England pairing of a smoked alewife and a glass of beer.

A handful of river systems, such as the Penobscot and the Kennebec rivers, each have dozens of contributing rivers, each of which has a town that holds fishing rights to that river’s alewives. These fishing rights, some of which date back to the 1700s, remain in effect in more than 40 towns today.

In the mid-1900s, as industry and technology boomed, it became easier to haul lobsters and to log Maine’s forests, but it became harder to survive as an alewife.

When people began building dams along Maine’s waterways, primarily to serve the wood industry, the path for alewives and other spawning fish, such as eels and the Atlantic salmon, was blocked. Pierce said pollution made the fish inedible, which reduced public outcry about preserving fish passages.

Alewife populations crashed, and have never recovered.

kennebecjournal