S2ARY IS SCARY!

[lowwall]

Not many FFNH may be aware of a few guys here trying to improve our fisheries. S2ary is one who knows some stuff, he probably never imagined that the power of his sugestion would knock the Boston Woolen Mill Dam, in RochesterDam down but looks like it happened.

Here are the before and afters
Before his sugestion

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h272/lowwall/P6210017.jpg

After!
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h272/lowwall/P7060036.jpg

Wow

OK, turns out The owner of that dam had conducted repairs to the structure which lowered the spillway elevation approximately 5 feet vertically and stabilized the remaining portions of the spillway. Was fish passage taken into acount when this was done? We Don't know.

Next Project!

Head of tide on the Little River in N. Hampton . . This river gets stocked annually and has a section owned by the Hampton F&G club (?). NH Audubon owns the majority of the salt marsh. The result is a 214 acre estuary with two primary river branches, numerous tributaries and a large main trunk.

Sounds like a good place to work on a salter run to Me!

[OTTER]

I would assume that the lower water level above the dam would somewhat reduce the rise in temperature that the holding pond experiences and then releases. I wonder by how much?

[Steve H.]

Wow....I recently moved from Hampton (North Beach) after living there for two years. Little River was five minutes from my house and I fished it several times. Didn't realize anyone else knows it's there!!

It is a charming little brook, pleasantly strange to catch brookies with the smell of salt in the air. I am 100% interested in working on this project.

[Solid]

I'm confused, isn't it still there just lower?

[BugChucka]

What's the name of the river that the dam is located on?
In reference to Otter's question, if I'm viewing this correctly, it appears that the water above will still be the same depth, but the removed portion of the spillway (5 ft.) will help to restore fish passage. Or did the actual dam shrink verticaly?

Very interested in hearing more about this! Assuming there are no downstream obstructions, what species do you hope to see or already see below the dam? Does it receive a herring/alewife run in May?

[lowwall]

[quote="BugChucka"]What's the name of the river that the dam is located on?

The dam is located on the Salmon Falls River at the Rochester, NH / Lebanon, Me line. It is the Boston Woolen (or Felt) Mill Dam in Rochester.

It is a wooden dam that partially breeched in 2006, and breeched more in 2007. removal of the dam creates a free flowing section from Rt. 9 in Berwick and Somersworth all the way up to Milton. There are a number of cold water streams including the Little River in Berwick that feed into this section of the river and most of the adjacent watershed is floodplain so it is protected.

Over the last few years the NHF&G have put something like 25,000 landlocks in the stretches between Milton and Sommersworth. There is also a rumor of Brookies in the fast water sections from below the breeched dam in Rochester to where the gradient levels off behind the former Gavin’s Point dam site in Somersworth.


1) removed portion of the spillway (5 ft.) will help to restore fish passage.

I don't know!, Don't know about Smelt or Herring either. Hope so
]

[OTTER]

The pond is 5 feet lower than it was before so therefore holds much less water. This quote is from the Dam Safety Engineer:

"The owner of that dam has conducted repairs to the structure which lowered the spillway elevation approximately 5 feet vertically and stabilized the remaining portions of the spillway."

[s2ary]

My guess is in an average year the dam will pass riparian species. But I haven't made it there to verify it yet. The picture of the completed dam looks to be in august maybe, (few wildflowers like ragweed, aster, goldenrod). This year August was the dryest ever on record, and I think the blue on the dam is a temporary baffel so they can work in the dry. It may also have a lowered section in the middle. I'll try to get there over the weekend and report.

Prior to the breach the section from the dam held lgmouths smallies bluegills and big pickerel. After the breach in 2006 I only caught 1 lg mouth and a few little smallies. Also the after the breech the bait went from dominantly bullhead fry and tadpols to dace.

This year I only fished the section early after the flood and didn't catch anything. In fact this year the section below the dam were off as well. My guess is the large fast flood stranded a lot of the non riparian species high and dry in the flood plains. We went from record high flows to back to normal in less than a week, possibly to fast for the fish to process.

There are three dams below this dam that do not allow for fish access with Great Bay, and one that had a new ladder in the last 5 years. The remaining dams are on our radar screen we just need to determin which one to target next. Believe it or not below each of the dams are some nice fast water sections that are also whispered to hold trout. But that is unverified to this point.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=moulton+street+berwick+me&sll=43.26412,-70.862621&sspn=0.003219,0.008605&ie=UTF8&ll=43.263769,-70.860754&spn=0.003219,0.008605&t=h&z=17&om=0


Another thing to finger is the condemed bridge over the greatworks river. I'm not sure what kind of a dam that is but it could be 50ft or higher, and people claim to catch dropps there all the time. We may have an opportunity to leverage something out of the revamp.

[BugChucka]

The dam would hold relatively the SAME amount of water in photos 1 and 2. The water in the second photo only looks lower because of actual water conditions, not because of structural modifications. With the broken portion of the spillway in the first, its holding capability was already compromised.

If there was a photo of the original dam with the spillway undamaged it would more clearly illustrate that it held an additional 5 ft with the angled crest intact. There's no change in fish passage or holding capacity between photo 1 and 2. I started staring at the pictures as "before and after" when the "before" was actually "after" it was damaged.

Otter, I'd assume the sun would penetrate and warm the lower water faster now... if there were fish around I'd assume that it was once holding water to some degree? Any knowlege of this?

Does anyone know why LL Salmon are stocked there in such great numbers right now. I know nothing of this watershed but I'd assume they'll never be able to reach any smelt. Would love to hear more about this water if anyone is willing to share.

[s2ary]

Bug,
Before you get to concerened about the numbers go back through their stocking records, That's a big strech of water and they've stocked a lot there, but my numbers might be off. The point is river has a lot of coldwater tribs to provide refuge during the summer and has sections of trouty water that we can improve on.

I took a look at what Maine stocks in a few of the cold water tributaries that dump into the SF from the Maine side.

The Little river from Buxton to Berwick gets 1050 8-10" browns and 2100 8-10" brookies. Most of the browns are put in near the C&R section that is close to the SF.

The great works from sanford to south berwick gets 1100 8-10" browns and 1650 8-10" brookies

The big surprise is each fall the salmon falls gets 850 12-16 inch sea run browns. This section has been recieving fall searuns for 5 or more years.


Maine is a big state, so I'm guessing they get spread thin, but we can do a joint state effort on this river it has a lot of potential.

[BugChucka]

s2ary, the only thing that throws me off is the salmon stocking regardless of the actual numbers. I'm assuming they're just throwing in some surplus but wondered if there was more to it than that. Thanks for the information... any returning searuns?

[s2ary]

I swung by this site over the weekend and...

There is no upstream migration potential... :evil: Unless of course the shad or salmon can jump from a shallow pool up 5 feet and for a distance of 12. :x

We missed out on it and someone at the state dropped the ball as well. :evil:

GBTU recieved recieved some information from the state, and I had a friend from a different agency inquire as well. The only reason the dam was rebuilt was so the owner could maintain the potential to restore hydro power generation at the site for a future date. :evil:

We need to look further into upstream passage for this location and somehow get on the list to provid comment on future dam rehabs. Somehow the ball was dropped on this.

It could be that the assumption was that fish could clear the dam with a single jump. I'm pretty sure that there is a calculation based on depth of pool vs. hieght of jump for different species. My guess is there is no way a shad could make this jump let alone a stergueon. I think that the plung pool may even be to shallow for salmon to make the jump. We need to make this our wake up call because we missed a golden opportunity with an owner operator that was willing to play ball based on a future venture. :evil:

[BugChucka]

Very well put. When any dam is looked at for modifications an immediate notification should be given on down the line. Projects like this should be looked at by state agencies and orgs. such as TU but the State hasn't any obligation to reach out for private opinions on fisheries. I wonder at the state level if any concern was really even given to fish migration etc..?