State of the River 2004-2005
St. Croix River, New Brunswick
Currents of History
Designated 1991
This year’s highlight was the successful completion
of a 13-year initiative to permanently conserve the undeveloped
shores of an 80-kilometer
section of international waterway.
In early 2003, the State of Maine acquired the remaining waterfront
on the state side of the Spednic
Lake/Upper St. Croix River corridor,
complementing earlier land acquisitions and conservation designations
by New Brunswick. The province held
public consultations on the management
of its new 26,000-hectare Spednic Lake Protected Natural Area on
the St. Croix.
Conservation efforts continued on the St. Croix tidewaters,
with the creation of a 127 hectare Devil’s Head Conservation Area
and the opening of a 134 hectare Ganong Nature Park at Todd’s
Point. These facing headlands make
a major contribution to future public access and scenic quality along
the estuary.
Heritage initiatives also gained attention. In July, St. Croix residents
welcomed the Gulf of Maine Expedition, a team of educators and scientists
who paddled over 2100 kilometers from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to draw attention to coastal heritage and resources.
Senator Viola LJger was named as the Canadian Patron for Ste-Croix
2004, the pending celebration of the 400th anniversary
of the first French settlement in North America, to take place here
in 2004. And construction moved into high gear on the Downeast Heritage
Center, a $6 million facility that will promote the natural and cultural
heritage of the St. Croix border region beginning in 2004.
Innovative research continued into new methods to
restore the region’s
declining Atlantic salmon stocks. In
followup to the release of over 1,300 adult salmon spawners into
the river in 2000-2001, in-river
studies have showed a good hatch of
juvenile fish. These studies will continue over the next few years
to follow the hatchlings through
their river years and then monitor
their return from the ocean in 2004-2006.
Information exchange took the forefront in the fall
of 2002, when three major workshops offered opportunities for learning
and discussion.
The International Joint Commission’s State of the St. Croix
Ecosystem workshop drew participants from three provinces and
four states to hear presentations on climate, land and water use
and natural resources in the St. Croix basin. A workshop on spill
communications raised awareness of the differences in pollution reporting
on the two sides of the St. Croix and promoted rapid, informal communication
of spill events affecting downstream users. The landlocked alewife,
a non-native fish that has appeared in the St. Croix, was the focus
of a watershed-wide fisheries workshop.
The largest communities and primary industry on the
lower St. Croix reinforced their commitment to clean water by beginning
upgrades
to wastewater treatment plant facilities
and procedures. The effects of these improvements will be seen
first in 2003 and be fully realized
by early 2004. This will coincide nicely
with New Brunswick’s
planned adoption of water quality standards for the St. Croix watershed – a
provincial precedent – at about the same time.
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