by Jeff and Allison Wells Boothbay Register column Over the weekend we had the opportunity to lead a birding expedition to an area north of Millinocket known by many as the proposed national park lands. It was exciting to be birding an area that currently little known by birders — we felt like birding pioneers! Read More
Penobscot River
Kennebec River Rebounds After Edwards Dam Removal
by Danielle Waugh WCSH-6 TV news story AUGUSTA, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — It’s been 15 years since the removal of the Edwards Dam, and the water and wildlife of the Kennebec River has changed dramatically. On July 1, 1999, the 900-foot dam breached, restoring a free-flowing Kennebec River for the first time in 160 years. Read More
How Unlikely Partners Came Together on a Maine River
Decades of dam building had decimated migratory fish populations that had long sustained local wildlife and people on the Penobscot River. After years of contentious battles, local stakeholders struck a deal. Today, for the first time in 200 years, river life is rebounding. And the power company has not lost any hydropower generation. By Laura Read More
Humans Changed Behavior, and Alewives are Rebounding in Kennebec, Penobscot, St. Croix
By Lisa Pohlmann, Special to the BDN Bangor Daily News op-ed For the last few weeks sea-run fish known as alewives have been heading up Maine’s rivers to lay their eggs. Their journey is a breathtaking force of nature to behold, as they fight strong currents, heading upstream in droves. While probably hundreds of millions Read More
Matagamon to Medway – Four Days on the East Branch of the Penobscot River: July 4-7, 2013
The East Branch of the Penobscot River is one of Maine’s best kept paddling secrets. The river descends through spectacular scenery in a remote region east of Baxter State Park with imposing waterfalls and demanding rapids, interspersed with flat stretches of prime wildlife habitat. Much of the land along the river is owned by Elliotsville Read More
State Plan Changes after Delay in Reporting Mercury in Lobster
Portland Press Herald news story by Scott Dolan, staff writer State Toxicologist Andrew Smith received an urgent message in 2011: A team of independent scientists had discovered dangerously high levels of mercury in black ducks in a marsh near the mouth of the Penobscot River. But what Smith didn’t know was that the same scientists Read More
Contamination of Maine Lobster Shows Value of Regulations
Kennebec Journal editorial The lobster fishery has been the one bright spot in Maine’s seafood industry for years — at least until last week. On Feb. 18, the state Department of Marine Resources ordered a two-year shutdown of lobster and crab harvesting in a 7-square-mile region at the mouth of the Penobscot River. Mercury contamination Read More
Reclaiming Rivers
By Henry Heyburn Jr., former NRCM board member In July of 1999, I attended the breaching of the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River. There were hundreds of others in attendance including Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer John McPhee, author of Coming Into the Country, The Survival of the Birch Read More
The River Wild
One of the most ambitious river restorations ever undertaken in the United States is happening on the Penobscot River. By Virginia M. Wright Down East magazine The reporters call John Banks from far-flung places like India, China, and Japan. They want to know how Maine is freeing a river from dams that have devastated eleven Read More
