The bill passed today will restore alewives, a key forage fish, to the St. Croix River, pictured here. Photo: CanadaGood @ flickr

We at CLF applaud today’s vote by the Maine state legislature to restore Alewives to their native habitat in the St. Croix River.

Today, the legislature voted to pass a bill that will reopen the fish ladder at the Grand Falls Dam, allowing the key forage fish to reach 98% of the St. Croix. This vote caps a two-year effort by CLF advocates to restore a fishery that numbered close to 3 million until a state law closed the fish ladder and the number of alewives dwindled to less than 10,000. Last year CLF successfully filed suit against the EPA to enforce the Clean Water Act’s provision related to the state law and then filed suit against the State to invalidate that law.

This bill corrects a practice of fisheries mismanagement that has been allowed to stand for almost two decades. It properly places good science and the interest of many over the self interests of a few. While litigation is the principal tool of our trade, it is wonderful to see the Legislature right this wrong and we hope to be able to dismiss our case against the State soon.

Introduced in March 2013, the bill found strong support among a number of the groups invested and concerned with the restoration of the St. Croix River and its native fish. These groups include Maine fishermen, environmentalists, anglers, federal agencies, and the Passamaquoddy.

The alternative bill proposed by the LePage administration was a half-measure that would have still kept alewives from reaching most of their native habitat.

This vote ensures alewives will now return to the St. Croix River. It is exactly the result that our legal advocacy was aiming for, and we applaud it as an important step forward.

CLF has been blogging on this topic regularly. To read those posts, click here.

After a full day of vigorous testimony (including supportive testimony from CLF) on March 25, Maine’s Marine Resources Committee today unanimously voted that LD 72, a bill that will reopen the St. Croix River to alewives, ought to pass. This is an excellent outcome.

With that strong recommendation, the bill will soon go to the full Legislature for a vote. If passed, LD 72 will reverse the law on the books since 1995 that has closed the fish ladder at the Grand Falls Dam  to alewives, preventing them from reaching their spawning grounds. Originally justified by a mistaken belief that alewives competed with smallmouth bass and caused a decline in their population, numerous scientific studies since then debunked that myth. But in the intervening years, the alewife population has shrunken to the point where the species may be listed as threatened. Alewives provide food for numerous species higher in the food chain, provide bait for the spring lobster fishery, provide cover for other migrating species, and much more.

CLF has been blogging on this topic regularly. To read those posts, click here. For a great article on the issue in the Bangor Daily News, click here. 

CLF has been pushing for the unfettered restoration of alewives to the St. Croix in the Courts and in the Legislature. We’re very close to an historic victory that helps the environment and economy of the St. Croix region. Now is the time to push this over the finish line. Please stand with us and contact your legislators and urge them to support this bill.

An important step forward for restoring alewives to the St. Croix river

Fishermen, environmentalists, anglers, representatives from the Passamaquoddy tribal government, federal agencies and the Canadian government have spoken: Alewives should be allowed to return to their native St. Croix river.

At a legislative hearing Monday, speaker after speaker rose in support of a bill, L.D. 72, that would immediately open many fishways at the river’s dams to Alewives.

Our own Sean Mahoney, EVP & Director, CLF ME, testified in support of the bill, arguing, “L.D. 72 is simple, it does the right thing and its benefits – to the watershed, the ecosystem and the many whose livelihoods would be enhanced by a return of the alewives – would be relatively immediate.”

The legislature is currently considering three bills, and Mahoney was joined by the vast majority in supporting L.D. 72, an emergency bill sponsored by Passamaquoddy tribal Rep. Madonnah Soctomah, that would require the Grand Falls Dam fishway to be opened to the “unconstrained passage” of Alewives by May 1^st, before the species’ spring spawning season.

The opening would give the fish immediate access to over 24,000 acres of habitat, compared to a sparse 1,174 open today. In all likelihood, this opening would lead to Canada’s opening the fishway upstream at the Vanceboro dam, allowing access to thousands of additional acres. One researcher estimated that if spawning runs had access to the entire watershed, alewives could number more than 20 million, up from just over 31,000 now.

The alternative Adaptive Management Plan, L.D. 584, calls for a more gradual, staged reintroduction of spawning Alewives to the river. Proposed by Governor Page’s administration, this plan met overwhelming opposition at Monday’s hearing, and was even condemned by one of its own co-authors. It falls far short of restoring alewives throughout the watershed.  It also would run afoul of federal law concerning the operating of dams such as the Vanceboro Dam, as well as the State’s own water quality standards, as noted by Sean in his testimony.

The LePage administration, along with fishing guides from Washington county, were alone in their concerns that reintroduction of Alewives may lead to a decline in smallmouth bass. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asserted that smallmouth bass, which were introduced into the St. Croix in 1877, have lived harmoniously with spawning Alewives in hundreds of Maine’s lakes and rivers.  Mahoney’s testimony, which you can read here, provides the legal arguments against L.D. 584.

You can more about our work restoring the alewives to Maine’s rivers here, or check out our latest blog posts about alewives here.