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Monumental agreement for Maine’s Atlantic salmon
Setting the stage for dam removal and Atlantic salmon recovery In the early 1800s, as many as 200,000 Atlantic salmon would return to Maine’s Kennebec River for their annual spawning run. In 2025, just 47 adult Atlantic salmon — designated as a federally endangered species — swam up the river to Lockwood Dam, where they…
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Avoiding science imperils salmon
A long-awaited environmental impact statement (EIS) regarding plans for fish passage improvements on Maine’s Kennebec River finally dropped on Feb. 28. Trout Unlimited and our many partners and supporters who are invested in the health of the Kennebec are disappointed that the EIS ignores the best available science and could doom endangered Atlantic salmon to…
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Another barrier down: Reconnects habitat on Maryland’s Wolf Den Run
A barrier on Wolf Den Run in the Potomac Highlands of Maryland––a TU Priority Waters area––was among the many AOP projects TU tackled in 2024.
Imagine it’s a blistering hot summer day and your house has only one room that’s air-conditioned. But there’s a problem: The door operates only one way. You can leave the cool room, but you can’t go back in. That’s what happens when a dam or a perched culvert creates a blockage on a stream, and…
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Reconnection Report Card — New York Priority Waters
Trout Unlimited's staff and municipal partners continue to work diligently to complete a wide-spanning list of New York priority culvert surveys and replacements. The reconnection of fragmented and dammed rivers resides at the core of our strategy to improve habitat for New York’s wild trout. With our small but mighty team, we reconnected over 30…
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Vander Werff joins TU staff to lead project work in CT
TU’s Northeast Conservation program has welcomed a key role player to the team. Jon C. Vander Werff is TU’s new Connecticut project manager. Vander Werff will orchestrate the 2025 Norwalk River Cannondale Dam (below) removal project, partnering with regional staff leads Tracy Brown and Jesse Vadala to execute this major project and connect our mission…
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AOP surveys continue in Driftless Area
The summer of 2024 was our second year having field technicians working across the Driftless Area to assess the condition, fish passage status and flood vulnerability of bridges and culverts on our coldwater streams. This work is often termed “Aquatic Organism Passage” or AOP due to the broad ecosystem benefits that are achieved when…
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Virginia project frees a stream — and trapped trout
Finding 45 brook trout in a single pool in a small creek may sound like a good thing. In the case of a small stream in Virginia’s mountains it was anything but. The fish were trapped in a small plunge pool beneath a perched culvert on Railroad Hollow, a small brook high in the Dry…
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