In 1984, fisheries biologists estimated that about 8,000
American shad remained in the upper Chesapeake Bay. By 1995, after intensive restoration efforts, the estimated population had risen to more than 300,000.
With the opening of fish lifts at Safe Harbor and Holtwood on the Susquehanna River in southeast Pennsylvania, the future of the American shad is brighter still.
Combined with fish lifts opened at Conowingo Dam in 1991, the lifts to bypass hydroelectric dams at Safe Harbor and Holtwood have opened extensive spawning grounds that had been closed for 85 years.
When the bypasses at York Haven dam below Harrisburg are completed at the turn of the century, the Susquehanna River Shad Restoration Project will have restored more than 400 miles of spawning grounds for shad and river herring.
Sportsmen, environmentalists, state and federal agencies and a partnership of utility companies have been working since the 1970s to rebuild the historic runs of shad from the Atlantic up the bay and Susquehanna.
The major utility company partners in the project are Baltimore Gas and Electric and Pennsylvania Power and Light.
"Over the last 20 years, the utilities have combined to invest more than $50 million in the American shad restoration effort," Safe Harbor Water Power Corp. president and CEO Marshall Kaiser said at dedication ceremonies last week. "I can tell you our combined efforts have paid off."
The annual shad migration begins in April and ends in June. In the first for weeks of the run this year, 90,000 shad and 240,000 river herring passed through the lifts at Conowingo. The record for shad transported at Conowingo had been 62,000 in 1995.
"The fish lifts are the culmination of decades of work by the utilities and agencies to restore shad to the Susquehanna," said Ronald E. Lambertson, regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The lifts at Holtwood and Safe Harbor, dams about eight miles apart in Lancaster County, ultimately will be able to transport more than 2 million shad and are the largest in North America.
Fishing for American shad in Maryland waters has been closed for many years because populations were far below historic levels.
Once all of the Susquehanna dams have been bypassed, it's possible that recreational and commercial fisheries in Pennsylvania and Maryland will be reopened.
The heyday of the shad commercial fishery was past by the beginning of this century.
Pub Date: 6/01/97
