Monday, May 20, 2013 A recent order by the federal Environmental
Protection Agency that will open a substantial portion of the
St. Croix River to migrating alewives has many fans -- and more
than a few critics. Lee Sochasky keeps a count of alewives at
the Milltown Dam fishway in the Canadian province of New
Brunswick last month. An effort is under way to overturn a 1995
Maine law, a move that could open fishways at other dams on the
St. Croix River between Maine and Canada and expand the fish’s
reach into a sprawling international watershed. But that effort
has its detractors, too. 2012 staff file photo/Gregory Rec Both
sides of the dispute may have valid points to make. But there
may also be a valid compromise position that, if the EPA agrees,
could offer a way around the controversy. Alewives, also known
as river herring, are a small fish with a potentially huge
economic and ecological impact. Their spawning runs upstream
from the ocean now involve some tens of thousands of fish using
only 6 percent of the