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March 23, 2006
Project Coordinator Contact: Sandra Lary
sandra_lary@fws.gov 207-781-8364 x 19
Highland Lake fish passage completed
On September 15, 75 supporters, dignitaries and conservation partners celebrated the restoration of fish passage at Highland Lake. After several years of detailed planning and fundraising, the project is now complete. The project involved renovating the fishway and restoring the degraded stream channel at Highland Lake Dam in order to improve upstream and downstream passage for diadromous (sea-run) fish – especially alewives, which had historically enjoyed free access to Highland Lake.
In 1936, a dam owned by the City of Westbrook was built at the outlet of Highland Lake, cutting off native sea-run alewives from their historic spawning and nursery habitat. More than 50 years later, in 1988, Maine Dept. of Marine Resources constructed a concrete denil fishway at the dam to once again allow adult alewives to successfully pass upstream to spawn in Highland Lake and to allow adult and juvenile alewives to move downstream to the Gulf of Maine. During a massive southern Maine flood in October 1996, the old Highland Lake Dam breached, the fishway was destroyed, and the downstream channel was degraded and over-widened. A new dam and fishway were constructed in 2000, but they have not worked effectively at passing alewives.
A planning team, initially including biologists and engineers from Maine Dept. of Marine Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service initiated design work, solicited additional partners and consultants to provide technical and financial support, obtain required permits, and conduct outreach to:
- Adjust the fishway structure to reduce the velocity of the water in the fishway and improve passage of adult alewives into Highland Lake,
- Restore the degraded stream channel to direct adult alewives to the fishway entrance,
- Restore the degraded stream channel to concentrate water flows and improve upstream and downstream migratory routes for adult and juvenile alewives, and
- Install a fish trap and counter to monitor and help manage the Presumpscot alewife population.
The restoration project was ultimately funded and completed with support from a broad array of partners, including:
- Natural Resources Conservation Service Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program,
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Gulf of Maine Coastal Program, Engineering Division and Fish Passage Program),
- Maine Dept. of Marine Resources,
- Casco Bay Estuary Partnership,
- Maine Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership,
- Kleinschmidt and Associates,
- National Fish and Wildlife Federation,
- Town of Westbrook,
- Highland Lake Association, and
- nearby landowners.
This restoration project provides alewives with access to 640-acre Highland Lake for spawning and nursery habitat. With fish passage restored, Highland Lake will produce an estimated 150,000 adult and 1,000,000 juvenile alewives annually. Alewives from Highland Lake travel to Mill Brook, the Presumpscot River, Casco Bay and the Gulf of Maine, creating a healthier and more diverse watershed by providing vital nutrients and forage along the entire route. In spring, alewives swim to freshwater lakes to spawn. In summer and fall, adults and juveniles return to the ocean, traveling as far as 120 miles offshore. Between and within these habitats, nearly everything eats alewives: striped bass, cod, haddock, brook trout, landlocked salmon, bass, pickerel, perch, seabirds, bald eagle, osprey, great blue heron, gulls, terns, cormorants, seals, whales, otter, mink, fox, raccoon and turtles. Alewives have been central to the web of life in Maine for millennia. If we give alewives a chance by helping restore them to their spawning grounds, alewives will once again play an important role in bringing our rivers, lakes, estuaries and oceans back to life. In return, we will be treated to exuberance and bounty in Maine’s watersheds, in a way that none of us have fully experienced in our lifetimes.
To learn more about Maine alewives, visit
http://www.fws.gov/northeast/gulfofmaine/publications/alewives.htm
As water quality and air quality have improved in the Presumpscot River watershed in recent years, grassroots, state and federal efforts have expanded to permanently protect and restore lakes, streams and rivers. In the last few years, several early initiatives to permanently protect and restore riparian habitat for fish and wildlife and to enhance recreational trail use have come to fruition. Much remains to be done in the Presumpscot watershed, but environmental successes to-date speak to active and effective conservation partnerships involving concerned citizens, locally-based organizations, town officials, and state and federal natural resource agencies. Together, conservation partners are committed to bringing the Presumpscot River and its watershed back to life as a cornerstone of community, state and national pride!