AUGUSTA -- Paddling down the Kennebec River the day after the historic breaching of Edwards Dam, Brownie Carson spied a plywood sign, facing downriver and mounted on one of the old stone and timber cribworks in the Kennebec River.

The handpainted message: "Welcome back, fish."

Ten years later, the fish are, indeed, back.

"It's a real testament to how Mother Nature will bring a river back if we just give it a chance," said Carson, longtime executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. "Whether it's the millions of alewives, the sturgeon leaping, or, as you paddle the river, the eagles and osprey overhead, it has become, once again, a terrific resource, both naturally and for the communities of the river."

An estimated 2 million alewives returned to the river on their annual spring run this year, according to state officials.

Other sea-run fish returning to the previously impounded 17 miles of river between Augusta and Waterville include American shad, striped bass, sturgeon, and a few Atlantic salmon.

Fish are also counted as they enter a fish lift at Lockwood Dam between Waterville and Winslow. The lift transports fish into holding tanks, where they are sorted. Targeted fish such as American shad and Atlantic salmon are trucked upstream so they can spawn, while other, nontargeted species are sluiced back into the Kennebec.

So far this year, as of two weeks ago, the fish counts at Lockwood included nine Atlantic salmon; five striped bass; 28 American eel; and 45,495 river herring, or alewives.

No shad have gone into the Lockwood fish lift, but about 30 were caught just below the dam and tagged with radio transmitters recently by state officials and volunteers, to track their movements.

Fisherman and Trout Unlimited member Jim Thibodeau said shad are notoriously finicky fish and have apparently been reluctant to enter the fishway. But he said he's caught numerous shad just below the dam.

"There's plenty of shad in the river, they just aren't going into the lift," Thibodeau said.

At a Benton Falls counting site, tallies so far this year include 1.2 million river herring, no Atlantic salmon, seven shad, no striped bass and 11 American eels.

Fisherman are coming back, too. Though whether their return to the river has created enough economic activity to make up for the revenue lost when the dam was removed is difficult to measure.

In some ways, fish won out over finances when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered the 917-foot-long Edwards Dam removed from the Kennebec River in Augusta, the first time an agency ruled the environmental benefit of removing a dam outweighed the economic ones.

Those economic benefits weren't just accruing to the dam's owners, Edwards Manufacturing, either. The city of Augusta also reaped the rewards of the power produced by the dam just above the city's downtown waterfront.

City Manager William Bridgeo said the city received about $250,000 a year in revenue from the dam. About half came from property tax; and, because the city was a co-licensee of the dam, the city also received some revenue from sales of the electricity produced by the dam.

Many in the community also had strong emotional ties to the dam and the former Edwards Mill, which closed in 1984.

The dam, as noted by a "Museum in the Streets" placard at the former dam site in Augusta, was built as "an engineering marvel that would harness the Kennebec River to power city prosperity."

Hundreds of workers were needed to build the original dam, many of them French and Irish immigrants who lived nearby.

The first dam at the site was completed in 1837, though it was rebuilt multiple times after flooding damage.

While the city initially fought, alongside Edwards Manufacturing, to get the dam relicensed and keep it in place, officials ultimately decided the fight wasn't worth it.

"We were looking at going up against the state of Maine, federal government and environmental groups," Bridgeo said. "It was clear to me it was going to be a long, arduous legal battle."

Bridgeo said what the city got, at least indirectly, for agreeing to drop the fight to keep the dam, was a $5 million commitment from then-Gov. Angus King for state help in restoring Augusta's Old City Hall, into elderly housing.

The city also received $250,000 from the state, which it matched, to create the Capital Riverfront Improvement District. The group developed a master plan for the capital's riverfront whose projects have included development of the 17-acre Mill Park at the site of the former dam.

Bridgeo said the dam agreement also eased a long history of tensions between state and local government in Augusta.

A 2008 study by Bates College professor Lynne Lewis, an environmental economist, and Jesse Lance Robbins, a former Bates student, analyzed the financial impact of dam removal and the return of sea-run fish on the Kennebec River.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, said the estimated annual economic impact of recreational fishing on the Kennebec between Augusta and Waterville -- based on calculations of how much fisherman spend for transportation, food, lodging, guide fees and other expenses -- is substantially greater than it was before the dam was removed.

The study, based upon surveys, annual fishing licenses sales and other data, estimated the total annual economic impact at $27.6 million, versus $8.3 million before dam removal.

Steve Brooke, who worked as project coordinator for the Kennebec Coalition, an organization of four groups that came together to work for the removal of Edwards Dam, said before removal he almost never saw anyone else on the river when he paddled between Augusta and Waterville. Now, he said he sees a lot of other paddlers, and fisherman, when he's on that stretch of river.

Bridgeo said fishing has clearly improved, but said the financial boost from visiting fisherman has been less than some predicted.

"I think we're still waiting for the increased fishing, the increased tourism, anticipated by advocates," he said. "You don't see the embankments of Augusta being swamped by fisherman flying in from New Zealand because this is the epicenter of anadromous sport fishing."

What did improve, almost immediately, is the water quality of the river, which was upgraded from a "Class C," designation to "Class B," within a year of the dam being removed.

Dave Courtemanch, director of environmental assessments for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said water quality on the Kennebec had already improved tremendously since passage of the Clean Water Act and improvements to sewage treatment facilities on the river.

But the impoundment still created an unusual water quality problem.

"The impoundment was neither a river nor a lake," Courtemanch said. "Organisms that normally populate a river can't operate in slower currents and deeper water. At the same time, unlike a lake, the water is still flowing through it, so you could never build a lake community in it, either. The water quality improved almost immediately."

Keith Edwards -- 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com