Today in Maine/Salmon News

What with the holiday season and all, I haven't noticed a lot to blog about lately, but this was kind of interesting:

For the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), the Penobscot Project represents a rare opportunity to restore a major river in the southern range of wild Atlantic salmon.

“The Penobscot Project is ASF’s top priority in the United States and one of the most significant projects in our history”, said Bill Taylor, President of ASF, “This is our last best chance to restore a significant run of wild Atlantic salmon in the United States.”

Beginning in 2011, the Penobscot Trust will remove the Veazie and Great Works dams and build a fish bypass around the Howland dam to open migration corridors long blocked by dams. When the project is complete, renewable energy generation will be the same as before the project or even increase.

As I've mentioned previously, I don't really fish, but this sounds like a pretty worthwhile project... especially if it's true about the renewable energy being the same even without the dams. Completely anecdotally it seems like New England really has a ton of dams... so producing renewable energy without bothering fish seems like a good thing for the region. And there's my "completely no expertise and/or knowledge that wasn't contained in a press release" two cents... but that's pretty much the definition of blogging.