SURRY — Alewives may be on their way to becoming an endangered species, but not if a group of concerned Surry residents has its way.
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When he heard that alewives in Patten Stream couldn’t get through the culvert under Route 172 to reach their spawning grounds in Patten Pond, cabinetmaker Greg Weaver (center, in green T-shirt) built his own version of a fish passage and, with the help of friends and neighbors, installed it in the stream.
Stephen Rappaport
SURRY — Alewives may be on their way to becoming an endangered species, but not if a group of concerned Surry residents has its way.
On the Wednesday afternoon before Memorial Day, Greg Weaver and about a dozen friends, neighbors and concerned fishermen carried a home-built fish ladder down the steep bank of Patten Stream and installed it in the rushing water where it passes through the Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) culvert beneath Route 172 on the way to Patten Bay.
Their hope, Weaver said, was to assist the alewives teeming in the brook below the culvert make their way upstream to their spawning grounds in Patten Pond.
By any measure, the project appears to have been a success, although it took some jiggering about to make it work.
Before the fish passage was installed, only a tiny number of alewives were able to fight their way against the churning current and over the ledges that create the whitewater rapids beneath the highway. By the weekend, Weaver counted as many as 83 fish ascending the fish ladder every five minutes.
Like so many fish tales, the story of the Patten Stream alewife rescue project is long and convoluted, and installation of the fish ladder last week is only the latest, but not the last, chapter.
About three years ago, a group of Surry residents including artist Susan Shetterly and organic farmer Sandy Bolster formed an ad hoc Surry Alewife Committee to work on protecting and enhancing the town’s alewife resources. The group has no official standing.
A few years earlier, Waltham fisherman Darrell Young began doing an annual fish count for the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the town during the annual spring alewife run. Last year, DMR and the town opened the stream to alewife harvesting and Young got a contract from the town to harvest alewives and built an elaborate system of platforms and walkways from the road down to the stream bank as well as a fish hoist by the side of the road to haul the alewives he harvested.
Stephen Rappaport, Waterfront Editor of The Ellsworth American, has lived in Maine for more than 20 years. A lifelong sailor, he spends as much time as possible messing about in boats.
Website: ellsworthamerican.com