Two big dam removals and a big river bypass around a third have made the Penobscot River in Maine accessible to salmon, alewife, shad, eels and other saltwater-to-freshwater fish for the first time in a century or more. (This one a major reason why the anadromous fish restoration is doing better in Maine than in New Hampshire.) As the Bangor Daily News reports:
The latest milestone: The construction of a fish bypass around the Howland Dam. That achievement followed the destruction of dams at Great Works in Bradley (2012) and Veazie (2013-14) in an ambitious project that took more than 16 years and cost $60 million to complete, and which has opened access to more than 1,000 miles of river, stream and lake habitat to fish that migrate between salt and fresh water.
The Bangor Daily News story is here. The restoration project’s web page is here.
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