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Log inNew Orrington fishway dam works 'perfectly'
New Orrington fishway dam works 'perfectly'
by Outspoken on Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:51 am
New Orrington fishway dam works 'perfectly'
By Nok-Noi Ricker
Staff Writer Bangor Daily News
ORRINGTON, Maine — The new rock ramp fishway dam that replaced the deteriorated Meadow Dam still maintains water levels in Sedgeunkedunk Meadow and Fields Pond but looks like natural rapids created by a pile of brook rocks.
The fishway dam will allow fish — including alewives and endangered Atlantic salmon — to travel up Sedgeunkedunk Stream after years of being blocked, and its bubbling pools are designed to create an attractive spawning and rearing habitat.
“Eight boulder weirs are what actually create the fishway,” Richard Whitmore, superintendent for Gary Pomeroy Logging Inc. of Hermon, which constructed the dam, said Friday. “They create the pools for the fish. They’re a series of boulders locked together, with one rock placed on top of another.”
The large boulders are 3 or 4 feet in diameter, placed about 20 feet apart.
“Ninety percent are hidden because of the streambed fill that was placed back around them,” Whitmore said. “They create eight individual pools, the first one where the old dam used to be.”
The town acquired the failing Meadow Dam, also known as the Fields Pond Dam, through tax liens when former operators Eastern Fine Paper Co. closed in 2004.
After initial cost estimates of $189,000 to repair the failing dam, town leaders began working with state and federal organizations and agencies on alternatives for fixing or replacing the dam, which is behind Bob’s Kozy Korner store on Cozy Corner.
After numerous studies and asking residents for approval to move forward, town leaders decided on a rock ramp fishway, which would cost around the same amount as fixing the old dam, while maintaining water levels, increasing fish use of the waterway, and protecting wildlife habitat and property values.
“The fishway has been completed,” Town Manager Carl Young said in an e-mail Friday. “Pomeroy Logging’s subcontractor finished the replanting yesterday and the area has been reopened to the public.”
Pomeroy was paid $169,300 to construct the fishway.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/90385.html
BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY GABOR DEGRE
By Nok-Noi Ricker
Staff Writer Bangor Daily News
ORRINGTON, Maine — The new rock ramp fishway dam that replaced the deteriorated Meadow Dam still maintains water levels in Sedgeunkedunk Meadow and Fields Pond but looks like natural rapids created by a pile of brook rocks.
The fishway dam will allow fish — including alewives and endangered Atlantic salmon — to travel up Sedgeunkedunk Stream after years of being blocked, and its bubbling pools are designed to create an attractive spawning and rearing habitat.
“Eight boulder weirs are what actually create the fishway,” Richard Whitmore, superintendent for Gary Pomeroy Logging Inc. of Hermon, which constructed the dam, said Friday. “They create the pools for the fish. They’re a series of boulders locked together, with one rock placed on top of another.”
The large boulders are 3 or 4 feet in diameter, placed about 20 feet apart.
“Ninety percent are hidden because of the streambed fill that was placed back around them,” Whitmore said. “They create eight individual pools, the first one where the old dam used to be.”
The town acquired the failing Meadow Dam, also known as the Fields Pond Dam, through tax liens when former operators Eastern Fine Paper Co. closed in 2004.
After initial cost estimates of $189,000 to repair the failing dam, town leaders began working with state and federal organizations and agencies on alternatives for fixing or replacing the dam, which is behind Bob’s Kozy Korner store on Cozy Corner.
After numerous studies and asking residents for approval to move forward, town leaders decided on a rock ramp fishway, which would cost around the same amount as fixing the old dam, while maintaining water levels, increasing fish use of the waterway, and protecting wildlife habitat and property values.
“The fishway has been completed,” Town Manager Carl Young said in an e-mail Friday. “Pomeroy Logging’s subcontractor finished the replanting yesterday and the area has been reopened to the public.”
Pomeroy was paid $169,300 to construct the fishway.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/90385.html
BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY GABOR DEGRE
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Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
