24 million for fish and they cut the state employees pay by 5%???? What's wrong with these people? To hell with the fish. Let's help people have a better life.

Mine is an opinion that has changed - but sincere.

I now believe the few people who will be left in Maine working deserve every edge they can get and hydro power is one of them.

We 'all' tried the Atlantic Salmon thing-- Big Brother shut that down.

Okay -so enough RESTORE already: Big Dams--: on the Colorado behind 'THE' dam is world class striper fishing albeit landlocked.

Hydro power / drill offshore / cut trees / enough looking back to what was -it is about what will be --or not.

Take down the dams!!! How can a natural flowing river scare all these big strong men? If we open the river, nature will do the rest. Pike may be wiped out once the anadromous fish return, they would love to eat a few Pike eggs and fry. Once the fishery returns it will bring more jobs than a few dams could ever bring.

No one ever did a study when they built the these dams. I've read stories that dead and dieing fish chooked the river after the dams went up, trying to go up stream to spawn. Let's stop the madness. Take down the dams....

Let the anadromous fish eat the eggs and wipe out the pike, now that's quaint! Exactly what anadromous fish would you think would eat pike eggs?Frankly, if you are as uninformed as your comments indicate, please do a little homework before posting such stupidity.

About homework on salmon, trout, and pike? For millenia these 3 species have lived in the same watersheds all over western Europe. Everybody posting here has a computer, just do your research on-line, it's easy.

Obsolete dams are obsolete dams, and re-building them won't create any where near the number of long-term local jobs that could be had if a robust anadromous fishery re-develops on Maine's major rivers. We've already nearly killed our rivers once, now it's time we took a different approach because the very survival of our species depends on the health of the other species with which we share this watery world. Although too many of us believe differently, we humans are only a small piece of the planet's bio-sphere. Time to wake from our collective dream that we're all-important. That dream is killing us as I write this.......The reason so many of us aren't "working" has too much to do with the idea that we all should be living in McMansions on land that was once farmland, and driving SUVs to work 30 or 50 miles away, all of which is based on shaky credit, not real wealth. The economy is crashing because it's built on greed.....Time for change...."Yes, we can"

And, by-the-way, it's not only "the rich man's salmon" that benefit from dams being removed where appropriate...shad, alewife, eels, Striped bass, sturgeon, smelt, White perch, all of which once provided many humans with good jobs, may all again ascend Maine's rivers, which once were one of the state's best assets......."Yes, we can"....

ROELM62,

Yours are the indocrinated ramblings of a 7th year undergraduate. The reason you're not working is either, a) you can't get out of bed before noon; b) the trust fund makes it possible to live your dream as a full time student/protester/activist or c) you can't pass the drug test.

"Yes, we can" is for dopes.

"We've already nearly killed our rivers once"......what? How and when was this? All rivers in Maine are cleaner now than they have ever been. 100 years ago the rivers had more dams and the water clarity was no match for what it is today. The high seas fisheries claimed our Atlantic Salmon runs in the 1970's when technology allowed fishermen from other countries to dial in exactly where the salmon wintering grounds were and clean them nearly completely out. This gave the feds an opportunity to ignore the fact and blame the problem on Maine river pollution, dams, illegal fishing in Maine, loss of habitat, and forestry operations. To top it off, each river was genetically segregated by genetics for each rivers salmon (crazy.). The feds took what few fish were returning and broke them all down into several parts so they had even fewer to work with. These numbers were then submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service, The Federal Government, The Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, and every Environmental Group in the nation that was well funded. This was done to ensure plenty of backing and support that would enable the Atlantic Salmon to be listed on the endangered species list. Why? Money. We have plenty of fish to work with but because of the creation of the distinct population segment regarding salmon the feds created a program out of thin air that would ensure them federal dollars for years with no success. In the meantime, the rivers are being studied to death in every possible form to try and discover why there are no salmon left. Fact.

ROELM62 wrote-"Although too many of us believe differently, we humans are only a small piece of the planet's bio-sphere. Time to wake from our collective dream that we're all-important." Change we can believe in, indeed! mattcarbone hit the nail on the head, although he could have offered another choice, d. All of the above!

Good Morning,

First, name calling never moved any important issue to meaningful resolution. If "Yes we can," is for dopes, perhaps mattcarbone would find more comfort in staying in bed all day because he believes, "No we can't." In either case he'd probably be right. Second, we nearly killed our rivers (and lakes), with which outdoorman agrees, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Happily, water quality and many other conditions have improved (including many now free-flowing, once dam-impounded river sections)....I see this progress as a major achievement of cooperation between the grass-roots, not-for-profits, and government agencies. On many fronts we have moved forward, on others we maintain the staus quo. I believe that, if we work together, we have a better chance of moving forward, rather than remaining stuck in our own name-calling attack muck.