In a significant move to restore sea-run alewives to their historic spawning grounds in the St. Croix River watershed, Woodland Pulp opened the fishway at the West Grand Lake dam on June 5, complying with an order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The opening of the fishway has been urged by federal agencies, the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Schoodic Riverkeepers, while fishing guides on West Grand Lake and the Maine Department of Inland      Fisheries and Wildlife (DIFW) have opposed the move.
     Edward Bassett of the tribe's environmental department at Sipayik, who works with the Schoodic Riverkeepers, points out that the waters now open to sea-run alewives include the shores of thousands of acres of Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Nation trust lands above the dam. "It's a good thing for sustenance for the tribe and for the whole ecosystem," he says. Once the watershed is restored to even half of its carrying capacity, he says the area will support millions of alewives. "It will bring back the biomass of protein fish available for food for not just people but for the whole ecosystem, including the Gulf of Maine." The St. Croix watershed has the potential to be "the highest producer of biomass of sea-run fish" of all of the rivers in Maine, which will help with the restoration of other species, including groundfish, throughout not only Passamaquoddy Bay but the Gulf of Maine. "It should not be taken lightly," he adds.
     However, guides in the Grand Lake Stream area have opposed the opening of the fishway. In a recent op-ed, guide Randy Spencer wrote, "In the modern history of this storied waterway, no single action approaches the scope" of the opening of the fishway. "In an ominously sweeping move, the watershed that is responsible for over three quarters of the salmon stocked in Maine will suddenly be exposed to a host of what are even now termed invasive species in the current Maine law book." He added that if the concerns of the guides and DIFW are borne out and the area's smallmouth bass and landlocked salmon fisheries are affected, the opening of the fishway "may be remembered by sportsmen and stakeholders as the day a hard-won, fragile balance in a famed fishery was deliberately disrupted."
     Scott Beal, spokesman for Woodland Pulp, says the company "doesn't have any position on fishery management issues on the St. Croix. We leave that to the subject matter experts in the natural resource agencies and do the very best that we can to comply with their instructions."
State requested delay in opening
     On April 26 FERC had ordered the opening of the fishway by June 10, despite concerns raised by DIFW about landlocked alewives and largemouth bass adversely affecting the landlocked salmon fishery in West Grand Lake. Three state agencies then requested a two-month delay of the federal order. Along with DIFW, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) requested the 60-day stay because of several concerns, including biosecurity and brood management at the state's Grand Lake Stream fish culture facility; the effects of the expansion of the range of invasive fish; the impacts of opening the fishway on salmon fishing; and uncertainty regarding potential interactions between alewives and prey forage for landlocked salmon. The delay in opening the fishway would allow time for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), DIFW, DMR, DEP and the Passamaquoddy Tribe to develop a joint restoration agreement to address those concerns.
     In a May 23 filing with FERC, Maine Assistant Attorney General Mark Randlett notes that the Grand Lake Stream hatchery produces 80% of DIFW's salmon production for statewide stocking and that the state recently invested $3.3 million to upgrade the hatchery. The state agencies fear that with the opening of the fishway certain diseases in Gulf of Maine fish such as alewives, including viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) and bacterial kidney disease (BKD), could be introduced into West Grand Lake. "Should these pathogens establish in West Grand Lake, the state hatchery would be temporarily or permanently closed, production and stocking would be suspended, and there would be significant loss of the West Grand strain salmon brood line," Randlett wrote. "This would have a devastating effect on viability of West Grand salmon, not to mention the regional economic impacts of the loss of a recreational freshwater fishing. Freshwater fishing in Maine has an estimated annual statewide value of more than $371 million."
     A joint restoration plan would provide for restoring of sea-run alewives in a way that would minimize the risk of harm caused by the introduction of diseases, Randlett wrote. The plan might include a recommendation for the installation of a fish trap at the West Grand dam to allow for the passage of sea-run alewives while preventing the passage of invasive species such as largemouth bass and landlocked alewives.
     The federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in its filings with FERC, indicates its support for restoring alewives throughout the St. Croix River system, noting that the run could be over 20 million fish, making it the largest population in Maine. Alewives can provide a commercial bait fishery for the lobster industry, and alewife harvesters have stated alewives are worth $230,000 to the local economy annually for each one million fish harvested. The harvesters also stated that "the cycle of managing the St. Croix River as the exclusive economic zone of 48 inland fishing guides should be discontinued."
     The Passamaquoddy Tribe has pointed out that alewives are the primary building block of a healthy marine and river fishery capable of providing for the cultural, economic and sustenance needs of the tribe. The tribe has 24,681 acres of federal trust land located above West Grand dam in the upper headwater lakes of the west branch of the St. Croix River watershed and about 24,000 acres of reservation lands at Indian Township below West Grand dam. Two representatives of the tribe, Edward Bassett and Matthew Dana II, noted that DIFW "refuses to work with, talk with and in fact opposes the tribal efforts to restore sea-run fish to shores of trust lands above West Grand dam." They state that the tribe views this refusal as the state violating its promises under the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act by unilaterally exercising a veto over the tribe. DIFW's commitment to work collaboratively "rings hollow" when they refuse to talk with the tribe or their federal trust agencies to address alewife passage through the West Grand fishway, they said.
In its filing with FERC, Maine DIFW stated that, once alewives have been restored in the lower drainage area of the St. Croix watershed, efforts would shift to areas farther up, potentially including headwaters like West Grand Lake. The agency states it remains committed to providing resources to investigate issues concerning interaction among different species of fish in order to develop a science-based resolution supported by fisheries agencies. DIFW and DMR developed a joint management strategy in 2015 for managing alewives and invasive species in the St. Croix watershed that outlines a phased approach to restoration.
     However, the Schoodic Riverkeepers, an association with membership from three Passamaquoddy communities that have a historical and cultural relationship with the St. Croix River, stated that Woodland Pulp, which operates the fishway under a FERC license, had requested a meeting with DIFW, DMR, the federal agencies and the tribe to discuss resolving the differing management goals on the St. Croix. However, DIFW responded by letter on May 9, 2018, stating that the agency did not believe a meeting was necessary. While DIFW has asserted that there is consensus around blocking alewives at this time, the Schoodic Riverkeepers note that the federal agencies are not in agreement with DIFW. Tribal, U.S. and Canadian federal agency officials participate in monthly phone conferences to discuss next steps in alewife restoration, but the state has never participated in the calls. Also, DIFW and DMR's 2015 management strategy for managing alewives was rejected as a plan by USFWS and NMFS, the riverkeepers note.
     With the repealing in 2013 of the 1995 Maine law that blocked alewives on the St. Croix, passage has been restored at the Woodland and Grand Falls dams, and alewives can reach the West Grand dam. The law had been repealed, in part, because of a 10-year interagency study on Lake George that concluded that alewives do not have a negative effect on water quality or recreational fisheries. In 2006 DIFW also conducted a study that concluded that alewives do not harm smallmouth bass size or growth and competition for food between the two species is not significant.
     DIFW also is concerned about largemouth bass and landlocked alewife accessing West Grand Lake, with both species having been introduced in recent decades into the St. Croix watershed by illegal stocking by anglers. Sea-run and landlocked alewives are genetically distinct. While FERC agrees, in its decision, that it is not desirable for non-native largemouth bass or landlocked alewife to colonize West Grand Lake, the commission disagrees with DIFW or does not find that DIFW's concerns are that significant. The main concerns are possible effects on the landlocked salmon population from competition and predation from largemouth bass, thiaminase dietary issues and forage base effects resulting from competition between rainbow smelts and landlocked alewives.