MAINE MONITOR • January 12, 2025
The Yarmouth town council voted unanimously this month to remove two town-owned dams on the Royal River and consider fish passage improvements at a stretch of rapids in between them, a historic vote more than two decades in the making. The decision follows a federal proposal released last spring and is the most authoritative step to removing the Bridge Street Dam and East Elm Street Dam since 2009, when the town first began studying how their removal could improve the Royal River’s health and fisheries. Removing the dams could restore sea-going fish populations to the Royal River’s headwaters after more than two centuries of impediment.