Maine Salmon Need More Help

Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Flickr

Atlantic salmon in Maine are in trouble, which isn’t huge news. But Trout Unlimited claims that recent efforts to help these endangered fish don’t go far enough.

In a blog post for TU, Mark Taylor makes the case that the current proposals under consideration don’t do enough to help the Atlantic salmon, specifically on Maine’s Kennebec River. Four dams blocking the Kennebec are either up for relicensing or license amendments, which means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that regulates these dams has to review new Environmental Impact Statements (EIS). When a draft EIS is submitted for review, it gives the public the opportunity to comment on the proposals, which is where the process currently stands for the dams on the Kennebec.

Taylor writes that TU, along with “more than 3,000 concerned citizens added their names and voices to the effort, speaking at public hearings in May and signing petitions calling for fish passage improvements.” Both TU and those citizens contend that the Atlantic salmon protection measures in the current EIS don’t go far enough to preserve the endangered species. At a minimum, TU would like to see improvements including “requiring bypass channels and/or two fish lifts at each dam, as well as screens with 3/4-inch openings above turbines to protect out-migrating eels.”

TU isn’t being unreasonable in its calls for better support for Atlantic salmon, according to Taylor. Keith Curley, TU vice president for Eastern Conservation, said that the current fish passage proposals in the draft EIS have failed on other rivers. Taylor quotes him as saying “The plan should be a full recovery. The plan should be restoring robust Atlantic salmon runs and thriving populations of co-evolved species like American eel…We have to do more.”

That more includes full removal of all dams, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, who commented on the draft EIS that “removal of the lower Kennebec River dams is the only alternative that would full eliminate effects that would otherwise occur as a result of their continued existence.”

For their part, Maine officials said they want to see “solutions for fish passage that are reasonably certain to work.”

Curley says those solutions have been tried on other rivers in Maine, and proven not to work.