ALEWIFE BATTLE: Saving the alewives in the St. Croix

Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2011 in Sustainable Maine
The St. Croix River

by Christopher Bouchard

PORTLAND – Several environmentalists are fighting the state of Maine in hopes of overturning a law that would nearly eliminate alewives, a fish native to Maine, from the St. Croix River. Doug Watts, Ted Ames and Kathleen McGee have joined Friends of Merrymeeting Bay in a lawsuit against the state.

According to Watts, the law they are fighting has a history that goes back to the late 1980s. It all started when some fishermen noticed that the population of smallmouth bass in Spednic Lake (part of the St. Croix River) was dwindling. At this time, the government had been working to restore the alewife population in the river. The fishermen came to the conclusion that the recent abundance of alewives was causing the smallmouth bass population to shrink.

“Basically, they put two and two together and got five,” says Watts. “They decided, on their own, that alewives were somehow responsible for reducing the smallmouth bass population. Mainly by eating them, I guess. I'm not really sure how they came up with it, but they started rattling cages.”

These few fishermen then urged their state representatives to pass a law that would completely rid the St. Croix of alewives and, in 1995, they succeeded. The law was passed through emergency legislation,

Abolish the Legislation that prevents Alewife from spawning in St. Croix - IJC

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Blocking alewife spawning in the St. Croix may have been the seminal event in destroying the 10 million dollar plus fishery in the St. Croix River Estuary. This move by the International Joint Commission is vital to the restoration of this Canadian Heritage River.

Art

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Fish blockade between N.B., Maine faces stormier waters
By Randy Boswell , Canwest News ServiceJuly 25, 2009

 

 

A watery, 185-kilometre stretch of the U.S.-Canada border between Maine and New Brunswick has become an international battleground over the fate of the alewife, a hand-sized fish that has been blocked from migrating up the St. Croix River since 1995 under an order from Maine's legislature aimed at protecting the state's sport-fishing industry.
While fishing guides along the St. Croix have long blamed alewives for devouring juvenile smallmouth bass and other fish favoured by anglers, U.S. and Canadian scientists - including experts with Maine's own fisheries department - have found no evidence to support the claim.
Now, in an unprecedented step into controversial waters, the Ottawa-based International Joint Commission - the Canada-U.S. agency that oversees boundary rivers and lakes between the two countries - has strongly urged Maine Gov. John Baldacci to reopen the entire St. Croix system to the alewife or face tougher measures from the bi-national body.

Pointing to a recent report by the IJC's own St. Croix River watershed board and the results of a heated public meeting in New Brunswick last month, the commission's Canadian co-chair Herb Gray and his American counterpart Irene Brooks sent a letter to Baldacci on July 10 pressing him to reopen the main alewife fish ladder at the Grand Falls dam along the U.S. side of the river.
"Your administration's leadership is needed to help restore the ecological integrity of the St. Croix system," they wrote.

See entire article here:  http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Fish+blockade+between+Maine+faces+stormier+waters/1829053/story.html

Image Credit and Copyright: Art MacKay

Could New Fundy Construction Projects Be Flooded ... Twice a Day?

With the UN report predicting sea level rises in the Bay of Fundy perhaps as high as 3 feet, one wonders what the impacts will be on new construction like the Biological Station at St. Andrews and the new Civic Centre at St. Stephen?

This photo shows high tide at the site of the new Civic Centre in St. Stephen. Hmmm?

News Item

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer - Sun Mar 15, 2:04 pm ET Scientists find bigger than expected polar ice melt WASHINGTON - The northeastern U.S. coast is likely to see the world's biggest sea level rise from man-made global warming, a new study predicts. However much the oceans rise by the end of the century, add an extra 8 inches or so for New York, Boston and other spots along the coast from the mid-Atlantic to New England. That's because of predicted changes in ocean currents, according to a study based on computer models published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience. An extra 8 inches - on top of a possible 2 or 3 feet of sea rise globally by 2100 - is a big deal, especially when nor'easters and hurricanes hit, experts said. "It's not just waterfront homes and wetlands that are at stake here," said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, who wasn't part of the study. "Those kind of rises in sea level when placed on top of the storm surges we see today, put in jeopardy lots of infrastructure, including the New York subway system." For years, scientists have talked about rising sea levels due to global warming - both from warm water expanding and the melt of ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica. Predictions for the average worldwide sea rise keep changing along with the rate of ice melt. Recently, more scientists are saying the situation has worsened so that a 3-foot rise in sea level by 2100 is becoming a common theme. More at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_re_us/sci_northeast_sea_rise

Thanks to Vivian N.