Whiting Mill Pond dam project to boost more than alewife numbers

As he gestures at the Whiting Mill Pond dam, fisherman Adam Boutin says, "Forty years ago, this stream was black with alewives. There would be 20 people down there dipping the alewives," a river herring species that swims upriver each spring. "Nothing can get in the nets now."

Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) hopes its Rivers Initiative program will change that by helping sea‑run fish return to upstream habitats where they have been blocked by dams. One way to do that is by installing fish ladders like the one under construction on the Orange River in Whiting.

Under a crisp blue sky, Jacob van de Sande, MCHT's associate director of land protection, was standing by with engineering plans, historic photos and literature on May 23 to inform the public and answer questions about the project, one he says represents a compromise with the Town of Whiting to preserve the historic dam and mill pond, used for fire suppression, on one hand, and provide migratory fish access to upstream habitat, on the other. A self‑proclaimed "fish guy," van de Sande calls dam removal the best option for fish passage but the concrete vertical‑slot fish ladder should allow upstream and downstream passage of target species in Whiting. It will be monitored for effectiveness.

Dams are physical barriers to fish trying to access upstream spawning and nursery habitats, he explains. They also alter biophysical regimes like temperature and water flow, transforming complex riverscapes into warmer slow‑moving reservoirs and ponds that trap sediments and limit nutrient exchange between fresh and salt water, resulting in fewer migratory fish over time.

The stone and wooden Mill Pond dam was built in the 1830s by Charles Perry of Eastport. According to van de Sande, "by the 1840s people were already complaining, 'Where are all the fish? Where are the salmon, shad, alewives?'" As a remedy, a wooden fish ladder was built in the 1840s and maintained by mill owners over the next century until the mill burned in 1954 and the fish ladder went into disrepair. According to an 1867 report, after ladder construction there were "so many alewives and all these fish." Fast forward to 2026, says van de Sande, and "you have no fish passage."

At Whiting, the pond, now lowered to a stream, has large sand bags staged on either bank awaiting placement as coffer dams to prevent water encroachment during construction. Old wooden and stone piers used to keep logs from washing over the spillway are visible. Ground excavation and grading for temporary access roads and erosion control have begun in preparation for construction of a more than 300‑foot‑long concrete fish ladder designed for shad, because, "if you can pass shad, you can pass most other fish," says van de Sande. The structure will allow upstream and downstream fish passage along a gently graded 1:18 slope with baffles to help slow water flow for fish moving in both directions.

After construction, the dam will also have "better spill capacity," lowering flood risks. The current dam does not safely pass 100‑year flood events.

MCHT and partners hope the fish ladder will pass not only shad and alewives but also sea‑run brook trout and American eels, the third most valuable fishery in Maine, and possibly Atlantic salmon. Though there are fewer salmon within the watershed, these anadromous species migrate upstream in the spring to spawn in fresh water and then go downstream to the ocean, where they spend most of their lives. A video monitoring system will be used to count fish and monitor effectiveness of the ladder. The partners hope to make the fish count and video available on a website in the future.

In 10 years, after state-required fish monitoring is completed, van de Sande hopes that Whiting will have an alewife harvest. "There is the potential for three‑quarters of a million alewives on the Orange River," he says.

Last year, one million alewives were counted on the Dennys River after fish ladder improvements at the Meddybemps dam. Two years ago Cherryfield received $40,000 for a third of the alewife harvest, due to an existing fish ladder installed in 1961, and Pembroke also now has a commercial harvest. Within a decade of two dam removals on the Penobscot River in 2012 and 2013, shad populations increased by more than 400% and salmon increased by 125%.

Another MCHT project going to construction this year will improve the existing Narraguagus fish ladder in Cherryfield, to a nature‑like fishway, which will be built out of natural stone, "to more closely mimic the natural river channel the fish are used to," says van de Sande. Nature‑like fishways require more space and are more expensive than a concrete ladder like the one in Whiting, but they are more effective at allowing fish to pass.

More than 10 years in the making, the Whiting project is being funded by $2.9 million of congressionally directed spending through Senator Susan Collins' office, with $600,000 from the town and $200,000 pledged from MCHT. Conversations among partners and stakeholders began in 2014, and a NOAA‑funded feasibility study was completed in 2017, with the town passing a water level ordinance to ensure the pond and dam were retained. Since 2023, MCHT, the Town of Whiting, Downeast Salmon Federation and Sunrise County Economic Council have been working toward final design, permitting and construction.

The Orange River is the second‑largest freshwater source flowing into Cobscook Bay. This project, combined with two others a half mile upstream in the design stage at the Lubec Water and Electric dam and Rocky Lake outlet dam, will reopen more than 36 miles of habitat and connect 52,000 acres of conserved land.

"Cobscook Bay is the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem in the Northwest Atlantic," says van de Sande, due largely to the diversity of habitats from vast mudflats, wetlands and islands to the rocky, seaweed‑covered shorelines and deep water and tides that rise and fall up to 26 feet twice daily, bathing the bay in cold nutrient-rich water.

Van de Sande explains that "the free movement of fish back and forth will feed the ecosystems up into the forest and in Cobscook Bay" and, according to research, support groundfish populations that collapsed in the late 1980s and 1990s. For example, alewives transfer nutrients to fresh water, and then "there are potentially millions, even billions, of juveniles coming downriver and going into salt water, and that's an important food source in the ocean."

Downeast is one of Maine's most fisheries-dependent regions. According to a 2023 report in the National Ocean Economics Program, the seafood‑sector accounted for 45% of jobs in 2019. "These rivers and the fish have been an important part of these communities for thousands of years. Over time, we've lost those connections, culturally, economically and ecologically," he says, adding, "When we get fish coming back here, people are really gonna get excited about it."

Construction is expected to be completed by December. MCHT's Whiting office plans monthly updates as construction proceeds.