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BY MEGHAN V. MALLOY
Staff Writer 05/22/2008

enlarge Staff photo by Andy Molloy

RIPPLE EFFECT: Maine Department of Marine Resources biologist Paul Christman hands up a net full of alewife he collected in Seven Mile Stream Wednesday to a colleague atop the dam impounding Webber Pond in Vassalboro. Thousands of the sea-run herring are arriving at the dam this week after migrating from the Atlantic. DMR is restoring alewife, once a staple of the diet of colonial Mainers, to the fish's historical watersheds along the Kennebec River.

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Nate Gray, a scientist for the marine department, said people will be allowed to harvest the fish starting Friday. "We've met our quota," Gray said of the minimum 85,000 alewives transferred to Webber Pond from Seven Mile Stream.

Gray said the harvest marks something significant not only for Vassalboro, but for the people of Maine.

"This is the first time this has been allowed in 200 years, no kidding," he said. "This area has rejoined its place in ecology."

State workers from the marine department netted alewives Wednesday out of Seven Mile Stream and placed them into Webber Pond so the fish can spawn. In the fall, the alewives will migrate back to the ocean.

The harvesting of the alewife, a state fixture, has been the subject of debate for many years. Several state agencies and groups have documented the alewife population as waning over the past 200 years, in part because of pollution and overfishing.

Written accounts from the 1700s and 1800s recall a time when the fish were practically crowded onto shore. Gray saw very much the same thing Wednesday afternoon.

"It's a beautiful thing, no two ways about it," he said. "We need these fish more than anyone knows."

Alewives, a sea-run fish, spend most of their lives at sea and return to fresh water to spawn.

The return -- and harvest -- of alewives, a well-known spring lobster bait, could help support Maine's lobster industry and keep money in the state that would otherwise be spent out-of-state.

For Webber Pond, which will have a fish ladder installed this fall so alewives can migrate in the spring without assistance, the primary benefit is a reduction of phosphorous in the water, Vassalboro Town Manager Mike Vashon said.

"The alewives eat up plenty of the phosphorous we have in the lake, and in the fall when we open the dam for them to migrate back down, they take that with them," Vashon said.

There can be trouble if the fish can't migrate back to saltwater bodies, however, he added.

"If they can't get back out in the fall, they die," Vashon said. "Then you're dealing with a fishy mess."

A portion of the proceeds from harvesting also goes straight back to the town, Gray said.

"What I know for sure is, without them, we're far poorer," Gray said.

Meghan V. Malloy -- 623-3811 Ext. 431

mmalloy@centralmaine.com

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