River In Maine heals

This article, http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/thegreenguide/2010/05/rivers-can-healwhen-given-a-ch.html, is about the Kennebec River in Maine. This river served as the livelyhood of the surrounding community until the late 1800's, since shad (species of fish) populated the river so heavily. The Edwards dam was built on the river in 1837 out of stone and wood. Constructed mainly for hydropower, the dam destroyed the shad industry in the area, since it blocked fish from travelling to mating grounds. Pollution also damaged this ecosystem. In 1999, the dam was removed, and this started a trend around the U.S. of removing dams that might wreck ecosystems. The river now has a large fish population, and has been saved from disaster.

I am glad that this story has a happy ending, especially when so many of this nature don't. The people of the Augusta community took the initiative, and stood up to industry that would rather have an inexpensive power source than save the integrity of an ecosystem such as this. I believe that the health of the environment should always be taken into consideration before developing areas. In the future, with President Obama's policy on the environment, hopefully we can start to see threatened animal habitats in the U.S. make a turnaround.