WESTBROOK – After more than three years of negotiations, the commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has approved a plan for the construction of a fish passage at Westbrook’s Cumberland Mills Dam.
The announcement comes more than a year after Commissioner Roland Martin determined the Sappi Fine Paper North America mill should construct and maintain a fish passage at the dam.
The process leading to this point has gone on for years. It began when conservation groups urged the state to require Sappi – the dam owner – to build the passageways to restore populations of migratory fish.
The fish passage will be built to conserve, develop or restore sea-run fish resources, particularly alewife, blueback herring, American shad and American eel, in substantial numbers to the Presumpscot River watershed, according Inland Fisheries and Wildlife spokeswoman Deborah Turcotte.
The plan arose from negotiations between Sappi, Friends of the Presumpscot River, American Rivers, Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Marine Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
On Oct. 5, Martin approved a joint proposal submitted by all parties that includes fishway design, a fishway and channel monitoring and maintenance plan, an effectiveness testing plan and a construction schedule.
The Cumberland Mills Dam and others farther upstream prevent the sea-run species of fish from traveling from the ocean to fresh bodies of water to spawn. The fishway plan is crucial in that it will allow fish to travel farther up the Presumpscot.
“The Presumpscot River is the only major coastal Maine river that does not have a fish passage at the first downstream dam situated on it, and that soon will change,” Martin said in a press release. “I congratulate everyone involved in these proceedings for working together on a comprehensive strategy to provide safe and effective passage for fish on this waterway.”
A spokesperson for the Friends of the Presumpscot River said the passageway will have long-term benefits by bringing fish populations upstream and attracting wildlife such as eagles and osprey.
American Rivers, which has worked with Friends of the Presumpscot for more than a decade to restore the river, applauded the effort.
“Fish passage on the Presumpscot will help bring this important river back to life and make this river even more of a community resource and a recreational destination,” Robbin Marks of American Rivers, a conservation group, said in the release.
Sappi is looking ahead to fulfilling the project.
“We are pleased that the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has approved the unified solution that we reached with the state agencies and non-government organizations for the design of one fishway at the Cumberland Mills Dam, which could meet all parties’ needs,” Donna Cassese, managing director of the Westbrook mill, said in the release. “We will now turn our attention to the construction of the fishway.”
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