ELLSWORTH, Maine — Two individuals and a southern Maine organization are ramping up their legal fight to restore alewives to the St. Croix River, this time accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of complicity in preventing the fish from spawning Down East.
Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, Doug Watts of Augusta and Kathleen McGee of Bowdoinham have notified the EPA that they intend to file suit against the agency within 60 days over alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.
A type of river herring, alewives spawned by the millions during the 1980s in the St. Croix River, which separates Maine and New Brunswick. But they all but disappeared in the river after blockades were put up in the 1990s, prompting a dispute that continues today.
The complainants are trying to overturn a 2008 state law that blocks the passage of sea-run alewives above Grand Falls Dam near the Washington County town of Princeton. The 2008 law was viewed as a compromise in the pitched cross-border battle over the lowly fish.
Fishing guides, sporting camp owners and others want to keep alewives out of the upper St. Croix watershed because they say large spawning runs will ruin the economically important smallmouth bass fishery. The other side accuses the state of purposefully suppressing an ecologically important indigenous fish species based on false fears that alewives will harm bass, a non-native fish introduced by sportsmen.
Friends of Merrymeeting Bay and the two individuals are poised to press the EPA on the alewife issue based on feedback from a judge in an earlier, unsuccessful federal suit against the state of Maine. Specifically, the complainants charge that the EPA has neglected to enforce a provision of the Clean Water Act that would require the federal agency to review any changes to water quality as a result of the fish passage blockades at Grand Falls Dam.
“What the Maine Legislature did in response to a few shrill voices is absolutely unconscionable and in total violation of the Clean Water Act,” Ed Friedman, chairman of Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, said in a statement. “By ignoring this, the EPA has only added insult to injury. Neither fish species dependent on river herring, nor the endangered Gulf of Maine ground-fishing industry can afford the continued collapse of St. Croix alewives.”
A representative from the EPA could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said the state is waiting for the International Joint Commission to complete an alewife restoration proposal that has been in the works for several years. The International Joint Commission is the body that works to resolve disputes over waters separating the U.S. and Canada.
Keliher said that if the commission puts forward a plan, Maine hopes any proposed restoration attempts would take place at a slow pace so that the state can take steps to minimize any impacts on the bass fishery.
As for the threatened lawsuit against the EPA, Keliher declined to respond, saying Friends of Merrymeeting Bay “usually takes extreme approaches to try to find solutions to issues.”
The group and its partners have been successful in the past, however.
For instance, Watts and Friends of Merrymeeting Bay filed a petition in 2005 to classify populations of Atlantic salmon in the Kennebec River as an endangered species. In 2008, they followed up with a federal suit attempting to force the federal agencies to make a decision on the petition. In 2009, federal agencies expanded the endangered species listing for salmon in Maine to include all of the Penobscot River as well as the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers.
Asked why a Bowdoinham-based organization is getting heavily involved in St. Croix alewives, Friedman said the health of alewives is a much broader issue. Alewives are considered an important forage fish, especially for groundfish, and occasionally are used as bait by commercial fishermen.
“There is a direct connection between what happens in the St. Croix River and in the Gulf of Maine, and there is a direct connection between what happens in the Gulf of Maine and what happens in Merrymeeting Bay,” Friedman said.
Some Maine Guides and sporting Camp have just closed the Grand Falls Flowage to Bass tournaments with no public input, or science involved. That is just wrong with no public input or science.
I would say let the alewives get to a point where they can spawn and not mess up the bass fishery further up river. Simple.
Wont the alewifes be good food for the bass?
And make them bigger to catch.
“Two individuals
Doug Watts of Augusta and Kathleen McGee of Bowdoinham and a southern Maine
organization” That about sums it up…. Stay the heck out of Washington county
I have been a staunch supporter of the restoration of alewives in the St. Croix River for nearly 10 years. In all of my research and chatting with the Passamaquody Tribe as their fish and wildlife consultant, there is no proof that alewives ever lived above the Grand Falls dam. A natural ledge and waterfalls prohibited them from going any further upstream to spawn. I currently receive a weekly report from the St. Croix Water Commission of the alewife passage at the Woodland Dam and I am pleased to report that the alewife restoration on the St. Croix River is alive and well. In this instance, I think the Friends of Merrymeeting Bay are being a bit eccentric.
Doug Watts is pretty much the definition of eccentric…..
I read a research study by a UMO grad. student who attributed the rapid decline in alewive runs in the 70’s and 80’s to factors well offshore; and not to any impediments in Maine rivers. People should realize that by 1820 nearly all the dams on Maine rivers had been built, and as Bill Randall points out; many were built around natural ledges around which the alewives couldn’t migrate.
These endless lawsuits by green fanatics are expensive and tiresome; and removing the dam may not restore the alewives. Perhaps we need a referendum on which fish species is most important. I’d bet it would be bass, and not salmon, primarily because you can catch and eat Bass; but not native salmon.
Alewives make it up to my lake, the bass still spawn….
There’s a little more to it than that, each body of water is different so the overall effect of the alewives in various bodies of water can vary. There would be some humongous bass for sure, but who knows what affect the alewives will have on the fishery as a whole, many factors come into play with an ecosystem. By the way which lake are the big bass in? ; )
Which fish were there first?? Alewive or the bass??? There is some good fishing on the St Croix Ive heard…. My lake the large mouth have taken over….
“…alewives spawned by the millions during the 1980s in the St. Croix River…” You must have been able to watch them WALK across the river, it was so polluted.
Somewhat ironic that people are seeking to return—highly doubtful they will return in large numbers; small fish which when oxygen is depleted or water is low, will die and contaminate the water, i.e. New Meadow’s river was lined with 5′ of dead decaying fish several summers ago in a hot summer; all under the guise of promoting ‘CLEAN WATER’.
Time for a judge to rule against these fanatics; since they want to occupy our waters after being thrown out of the ‘occupied’ parks.