The overall goal of this project is to establish safe, timely and effective alewife passage to and from Threemile Pond to support a run of up to 400,000+ adult alewives and other diadromous species via Seaward Mills Stream, Webber Pond and Seven-mile Stream. Threemile Pond is located upstream of Webber Pond where a successful alewife restoration project was completed more than a decade ago. Threemile Pond is located within a chain of lakes that make up the entire Webber Pond and Seven Mile Stream watershed. This watershed is located in the highly productive Kennebec watershed, this work builds on more than two decades of successful fisheries restoration.
The target fish population for this project is alewife (Alosa pseudohargus). The Threemile Pond can support of run of 469,000 returning adults. Other species that will benefit include American eel (Anguilla rostrata), sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis), white sucker (Catostomus commersonii) and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). Sea-run alewife, blueback herring, and American eel are all listed in Maine’s 2015 State Wildlife Action Plan as Species of Greatest Conservation Need.
Alewife migration into and out of the pond is severely limited at certain water levels along the 2.4 mile length of Seaward Mills Stream. The Town of Vassalboro and Community members, including the Threemile Pond Association and Webber Pond Association, are supportive of this work which will include upgrading the already under-capacity Webber Pond fishway to support the expanded spawning habitat of Threemile Pond.