The effort to restore the alewife run in the St. Croix River is marking two milestones in bringing the sea-run fish back to their historic spawning grounds. The restoration effort is expected to have a multifaceted impact, enriching the ecosystem by providing food for other species, generating a multi-million-dollar economic base and strengthening the Passamaquoddy Tribe's sustenance culture.
     On Monday, June 4, at 11 a.m. (AT) at Chiputneticook Lodge in Scotch Ridge, north of St. Stephen, a celebration will be held to mark the five-year anniversary of the ceremonial opening of the Grand Falls dam fishway for sea-run fish on the St. Croix. The Peskotomuhkati Nation at Skutik recently acquired the 2,500-acre property that includes the lodge and has frontage on the St. Croix.
     And on May 22 the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) participated in a joint Passamaquoddy, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service operation to transport sea‑run alewives from the Canadian fish trap on the lowest dam on the St. Croix River at Milltown to Vose Pond and Howard Lake on the U.S. side of the international border. The operation represents the first operation by DMR, since the 2013 opening of Grand Falls fishway, to support the tribal‑U.S.‑Canadian effort to restore diadromous fish to the St. Croix watershed. Approximately 250 fish were stocked in Vose Pond in the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge and 400 in Howard Lake in Calais.
     Paul Bisulca, a member of the Schoodic Riverkeepers, says there were two reasons for conducting the transfer. One was to figure out the procedure for taking the alewives across the U.S./Canada border for stocking purposes, and the other was to have the state participate in a meaningful way with restoring the alewives to their habitat in the watershed.
     Bisulca notes, "We elected to concentrate on the lower part of the river to restore them to their habitat because we're not sure what Maine might do at the Woodland and Grand Falls dams." Previously, the state had blocked alewife passage at those dams.
Both Vose Pond and Howard Lake are part of the St. Croix watershed, and by placing the alewives in those bodies of water Bisulca says they are introducing the fish to their historic spawning area so they will imprint with area and then will return there. "We're restoring the existing potential habitat for sea-run fish," he says. "We have enough habitat in the lower area to preserve the species."
     "It was very refreshing to work with people that want to cooperate with the tribe," says Ed Bassett, who participated in the effort as part of the tribal government's environmental department at Sipayik, which works with the Schoodic Riverkeepers. "It's a good example of how the tribe can work with others and others can work with the tribe in partnership."
     Bassett notes that six years ago the Passamaquoddy Joint Tribal Council had adopted a resolution to restore sea-run fish to the St. Croix, and the May 22 stocking continues that mission. He stresses the importance of the alewife as a keystone species that provides food for other species and brings nutrients to the ecosystem from the ocean. "Once they're established, the groundfish could come back," he adds, noting that fish such as cod, pollock and haddock could return to the bay. He also points to the importance of alewives as a sustenance food for the tribe.
     "If we give them a chance they'll proliferate," he says, pointing to efforts to restore fish passage to lakes and ponds in the watershed. Among those efforts was the installation in 2016 of an open bottom arch culvert at Popple Flowage in the Moosehorn to allow for fish passage from the St. Croix River up through Magurrewock Stream to the base of Vose Pond. Bassett has plotted all of the culverts and other obstructions to alewife passage in the watershed, and the Canadian side of the watershed will be mapped later this year.
     "We can't lose sight of the importance of the St. Croix," Bassett says. "It could produce as many alewives as the Kennebec and the Penobscot rivers combined. There's the potential of upwards of 30 to 40 million returning alewives a year. That's a lot of food for the environment."
     Last year, four years after one of the main fish ladders on the St. Croix River was reopened following a 19‑year closure, the alewife run on the river increased significantly, jumping nearly fourfold from last year's run. A total of 157,750 alewives ended up being counted at the research trap on the Milltown dam fishway, while in 2016 only 33,016 were counted.
     Alewives had been prevented from returning to 98% of their historic spawning grounds in the St. Croix watershed after the fish ladders at the Grand Falls and Woodland dams had been closed by the state in 1995. After the closures, the run on the St. Croix had plummeted -- from 2.6 million in 1987 to 900 in 2002. The fish ladders had been closed because inland sport fishing guides feared the alewives would harm the smallmouth bass populations in the region's lakes and ponds. The reopening of the fish ladders, first at the Woodland dam in 2008 and then at the Grand Falls dam in 2013, gained broad support after research demonstrated that smallmouth bass and alewives can coexist in lakes and waterways throughout Maine and the east coast of North America. The turning point in generating support for reopening the river to alewives had been achieved by the Schoodic Riverkeepers, who had highlighted the alewives' plight by producing a video and holding a 100‑mile sacred run in June 2012.
     A conservative estimate of the economic benefits of reopening the St. Croix fish ladders and rebuilding its alewife run is between $3.1 million to $5.9 million, which would be derived from the reestablishment of a bait fishery alone.