Big plans for Bremen alewives in 2011

Lincoln County News, Dec. 23, 2010

By Samuel J. Baldwin

There are several projects in the works to help restore alewife passage between Webber Pond and Muscongus Bay in Bremen. Successfully restoring passage to this spawning ground should be a big step in establishing a sustainable alewife run in Bremen, which recent federal law requires in order for a town to allow alewife fishing.  In order to spawn in Webber Pond, alewives must swim through Muscongus Brook, about a mile and half long stretch that crosses Rt. 32 twice.

For almost 10 years, Bremen resident David Wilkins and the Bremen Alewife Project has been working with local volunteers to restore fish passage in Muscongus Brook by building fish ladders and removing obstacles, such as the remnants of a massive stone wall.  Wilkins’ work will continue in the coming year, he said. On a snowy Dec. 23, Wilkins was knee-deep in Muscongus Brook with several volunteers hauling large stones out of a waterfall.

“Three fish ladders, four years, dozens of sandbags and hundreds of hours later, we can confidently say we know how to get alewives swimming up, into and through the [culverts] and into Webber Pond,” Wilkins wrote in an email to The Lincoln County News.  In that effort, Wilkins has been joined by Charlie Baeder and the Sheepscot River Watershed Council in a project to replace the culverts under the two Rt. 32 crossings.  Currently, the culverts are too small and smooth-bottomed to allow fish to swim upstream. The groups are working with the Maine Dept. of Transportation and several Maine and federal organizations to replace the culverts with either bridges or larger culverts that will allow fish passage.

Although the project is in its infancy, the SRWC received notice on Dec. 22 that they will receive $150,000 through the Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection, The Nature Conservancy and Army Corps of Engineers. (See story page 2.) They hope to receive a second large grant through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Rivers program. SRWC will know about the second grant in March, Baeder said.  Should they fail to receive the second grant, there are other funding sources SRWC is prepared to explore. “We’re going to keep at it until it’s through,” Baeder said.

The grant money will be used to provide a 50-50 match with DOT to pay for replacing the culverts, Baeder said.  The cost of the project won’t be known until DOT designs the culverts, but the initial estimate for the project is about $250,000 to $300,000 per culvert, Baeder said.

One of the culverts is “rotting out” and needs to be replaced anyway, Baeder said. The other culvert is worse from a fish passage situation. Because DOT and SRWC are splitting the cost of the replacement, DOT agreed to replace both culverts, Baeder said.

Although somewhat pricier than smaller culverts not designed for fish, the replacement cost shouldn’t be affected significantly by the considerations given to fish passage, Baeder said.

“From MDOT’s perspective, this brings in a lot of money that they wouldn’t have had,” Baeder said.

“It’s a way for us to ensure that the culverts are designed to allow fish to pass,” Baeder said.

DOT is currently surveying the two sites, and the design and permitting process will run through the winter, and Baeder hopes for a summer 2011 construction on the two culverts. Should road bumps arise, Baeder said the “worst case scenario” is summer 2012.

For fishermen, this project may be an important step towards ensuring they can continue to harvest fish in Bremen for years to come.  “This is good from a long-term perspective,” Baeder said. “In the short term, it may not help, but it’s the kind of thing that if it’s done in Bremen, and it’s done in 100 towns up and down the coast, it’ll be a major benefit in the long run.”

Earlier this year, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission passed an amendment to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Shad and Herring. Amendment 2, as it is known, prohibits the taking of river herring in all state waters on the east coast unless a town or state submits a “sustainable management plan,” according to a press release issued by the ASMFC.

The ASMFC defines a sustainable fishery as “a commercial and/or recreational fishery that will not diminish the potential future stock reproduction and recruitment,” according to the press release.

Fish measurements will be taken as soon as culverts are replaced and again in five or so years to demonstrate the impact of this project, Baeder said, and alewife passage into Webber Pond could be a key component for Bremen to demonstrate a sustainable harvest.  The coast-wide moratorium on river herring harvesting will take effect Jan. 1, 2012, according to the press release.  What this means for Maine is that by next year each town needs to have a harvest plan in place that allows DMR to demonstrate that the population of river herring is in line with the amount of fish being harvested, said Pat Keliher, the director of the DMR Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat, during a meeting with fishermen and town officials in Bremen.

Next year, DMR will likely enforce closures of the river herring harvest during key months, in an effort to establish a fishery that will pass the ASMFC definition of sustainable, Keliher said.