Remnants of Union Gas Dam, Messalonskee Stream, Waterville, Maine.
June 12, 2005.
The closing of the Cascade Woolen Mill in Oakland in the late 1990s
stopped the industrial pollution of Messalonskee. The stream could finally
breathe again.
The 1999 removal of the Edwards Dam in Augusta allowed Messalonskee's
native migratory fish to taste its waters again.
In the fall of 2000, wild Atlantic salmon spawned in Messalonskee Stream
for the first time in 160 years.
And in June 2001, the first dam on Messalonskee
collapsed from old age and neglect.