Environmental advocates say that thousands of young alewives are dying in the Union River below the Ellsworth dam – maybe hundreds of thousands.
Brett Ciccotelli is a fisheries biologist with the Downeast Salmon Federation.
"It's not the first time, as people know in Ellsworth,” he said. “It's an ongoing tragedy there. But for the river and the ecology but also the fishery. I mean this is a Heritage fishery in Maine.”
A spokesperson for dam owner Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners says the company observed a large number of alewives heading downstream but also that “the ‘vast majority’ of the juveniles were passing safely.”
Environmental advocates suspect many are being injured by the dam's turbines. And they are calling for better fish protection as part of the dam's effort to win a new, 40-year federal license.
This story was originally published June 29, 2018 at 3:10 p.m. ET.