15,000 Barriers and Counting: Marshaling Responses to Crossings that Impair Fish Passage in Maine

Stream restoration efforts focused on fish passage have had a traditional emphasis on dam removals. Recent studies demonstrate that 40-90% of road culvert crossings over streams in Maine block or impair fish passage and the stream processes that create and maintain habitat. Maine’s restoration community is developing and implementing new and innovative responses to address these challenges in an era of decreasing restoration capacity. One example is the Maine Stream Habitat Viewer, which for the first time permits easy access to stream barrier and habitat information showing where the worst problems and greatest opportunities are. Road crossings that block fish passage are a conservation problem, but also the expression of a larger civil infrastructure crisis that in small part is being relieved with restoration dollars. Consequently, we’re using the Habitat Viewer to provide municipalities, private landowners, and grass-roots organizations with the tools to get involved and augment the limited resources of Maine’s small professional restoration community.