seabass
08-15-2008, 07:24 AM
2 dams to be removed from Green River
by The Republican Newsroom Thursday August 14, 2008, 10:54 PM
By DAVID A. VALLETTE
dvallette@repub.com
GREENFIELD - The state Department of Fish and Game has given priority status to the removal of two dams on the Green River.
The designation was the result of an evaluation conducted under the agency's Riverways Program. Two other dams on the river will get fish ladders.
Three projects, all involving dam removal, received priority status.
The others target dams along the Shawsheen and Jones rivers in the eastern part of the state.
State Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian A. Bowles said the projects would "improve both wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities."
Dam removal here has been under study since 1999, when the city launched a preliminary assessment of the Meridian Street Dam, the most downstream of four on the Green River in Massachusetts.
The latest study, conducted for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, concluded that two of the dams should be removed, and the two others should get fish ladders so migrating or spawning fish can get past them on their way upstream.
The study determined that neither the Meridian Street or the Mill Street Dam served any useful public purpose. Their removal could improve the river's ecological health and restore habitat, Bowles said.
The Army Corps of Engineers got serious about the project in 2001, when biologists from the Silvio O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center in Montague, monitoring the fate of Atlantic salmon on their way up the Connecticut and its tributaries from long Island Sound, confirmed that the Meridian Street Dam was a barrier.
A pair of salmon were observed batting their heads against the dam in a fruitless attempt to get upstream, said Christine Duerring, then a state-assigned team leader for the Deerfield River Watershed.
Both the Meridian and Mill dams will be removed, while the Greenfield Swimming and Recreation Area's dam and the farther-upstream Pumping Station Dam will get fish ladders that give fish water-filled steps up and over them.
The measures will create fish navigability north to Guilford, Vt., where the only other dam on the river is located. That dam was rebuilt nearly 10 years ago, and equipped with a fish ladder.
by The Republican Newsroom Thursday August 14, 2008, 10:54 PM
By DAVID A. VALLETTE
dvallette@repub.com
GREENFIELD - The state Department of Fish and Game has given priority status to the removal of two dams on the Green River.
The designation was the result of an evaluation conducted under the agency's Riverways Program. Two other dams on the river will get fish ladders.
Three projects, all involving dam removal, received priority status.
The others target dams along the Shawsheen and Jones rivers in the eastern part of the state.
State Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian A. Bowles said the projects would "improve both wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities."
Dam removal here has been under study since 1999, when the city launched a preliminary assessment of the Meridian Street Dam, the most downstream of four on the Green River in Massachusetts.
The latest study, conducted for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, concluded that two of the dams should be removed, and the two others should get fish ladders so migrating or spawning fish can get past them on their way upstream.
The study determined that neither the Meridian Street or the Mill Street Dam served any useful public purpose. Their removal could improve the river's ecological health and restore habitat, Bowles said.
The Army Corps of Engineers got serious about the project in 2001, when biologists from the Silvio O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center in Montague, monitoring the fate of Atlantic salmon on their way up the Connecticut and its tributaries from long Island Sound, confirmed that the Meridian Street Dam was a barrier.
A pair of salmon were observed batting their heads against the dam in a fruitless attempt to get upstream, said Christine Duerring, then a state-assigned team leader for the Deerfield River Watershed.
Both the Meridian and Mill dams will be removed, while the Greenfield Swimming and Recreation Area's dam and the farther-upstream Pumping Station Dam will get fish ladders that give fish water-filled steps up and over them.
The measures will create fish navigability north to Guilford, Vt., where the only other dam on the river is located. That dam was rebuilt nearly 10 years ago, and equipped with a fish ladder.