MAINE MONITOR • September 1, 2024
For years, Ronald Ramsay — like his father before him — gathered the hay from his plot of salt marsh and spread it on his blueberry fields to keep the weeds down. Ramsay’s use of that land is now in jeopardy, because of a proposal to restore tidal flow to the marsh along the West Branch of the Pleasant River by removing a set of six tide gates beneath the Ridge Road crossing. Conservation groups say removing the gates would restore more than 250 acres of salt marsh — land area that could host sea-run fish and provide nesting habitat for migratory birds. “To restore it to what they determine to be its original state is a fantasy to begin with,” Ramsay said of the marsh. “No one really knows what it was. Those marshes were diked in the late 1700s. The riverway has been altered probably a dozen times by man over the years. What state are you looking for?”