Rivers Can Heal–When Given a Chance
Posted on June 9, 2010
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The Kennebec River, which drains about one-fifth of the state of Maine, once teemed with fish. Huge numbers of Atlantic salmon, striped bass, alewife, American shad, and five other fish species migrated from the Atlantic Ocean up the Kennebec to spawn. One fishing boat that headed out from Augusta in 1822 reportedly caught 700 shad in a single day. But by 1867 the local shad industry had collapsed. And by the late 20th century, the Kennebec’s fish populations had dwindled to small remnants.
What happened? Pollution, for sure, played a role. But the biggest culprit was the Edwards Dam–a small stone-and-timber structure built in 1837 for hydropower generation that blocked the fish from reaching their spawning grounds. Later on fish ladders were installed to help the finned swimmers bypass the dam, but many of the fish couldn’t or wouldn’t use them.
Upon signing the landmark agreement in 1997 clearing the way for the dam’s removal, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt heralded a new day, declaring that dam owners and operators needed to demonstrate “by hard facts, not by sentiment or myth, that the continued operation of a dam is in the public interest, economically and environmentally.”
Since then, some 430 outdated dams have been removed from U.S. rivers, opening up habitat for fish and other aquatic organisms and letting rivers flow like rivers again.
And last summer, on the tenth anniversary of the Edwards Dam removal, Augusta residents and conservationists gathered to celebrate the return of astounding numbers of fish to the Kennebec.
Andrew Fahlund, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers, was on hand that July day in 1999 to witness the rebirth of the Kennebec. American Rivers was one of a small group of organizations that fought for the dam’s removal and continues to fight for many others.
As Andrew describes in his piece for our Lessons from the Field, rivers can heal–when given a chance.
BY: Sandra Postel, – National Geographic Freshwater Fellow
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