Don’t blame the fish! It’s easy to get the wrong impression from the Aug. 15 story “Vassalboro tax rate increases by 15 cents” which ran with an image of alewives and concluded with a cost estimate for the construction of a fishway at the Outlet Dam.
The alewife restoration work is not causing local taxes to go up. We have removed two dams and have a large construction project underway to install a technical fishway at the Ladd Dam, keeping that dam and its swimming hole in place. We have used funding from many sources, including the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, but we have not used funding from Vassalboro’s property taxes.
This year Vassalboro voters did approve putting alewife harvesting funds toward the restoration work, which basically invests current harvesting funding toward larger future harvests, but local taxes are not being increased for the alewife restoration work.
Landis Hudson
Yarmouth
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