"Herring, Shad Get Head Start Before Bloede Dam Removal"

"Migratory fish already returning to Patapsco River as work begins to take down 110-year-old blockage".

"Bulldozers, excavators and construction workers are bulling their way into Patapsco Valley State Park near Baltimore this fall. They’re the advance guard for a task force charged with removing a dormant hydroelectric dam on the Patapsco River and reopening a big stretch of the river to spawning runs of migratory fish.

If the project stays on schedule, Bloede Dam should be gone by the spring of 2019. And, biologists shouldn’t have long to wait to see some action. Sampling surveys conducted in the Patapsco River below the dam have collected hundreds of alewife and blueback herring returning each spring as well as a similar number of juveniles later in the year — an indication of successful spawning.

It’s a remarkable find, given the river’s poor condition and the generally depleted state of river herring throughout the Chesapeake Bay and the entire East Coast."

Timothy B. Wheeler reports for the Bay Journal October 1, 2017.