NEW HAMPSHIRE: Preserving our natural resources.

• Author: Girard, Nancy L.

Water. New Hampshire has an abundance of water. Right? Not only do we have ample water for recreation, municipal supplies, and industrial development, but also, the quality of the water is excellent. Right? The answer is, not so easy. Yes, we have beautiful lakes and streams, which attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. New Hampshire also has a growing economy and every year, more and more people either visit or move to this state to enjoy its open spaces and natural resources. Of the New England states, New Hampshire is the fastest growing. Protection of our watersheds is critical to the quality of our groundwater, which provides drinking water, and our surface waters (lakes and rivers), which offer fishing, swimming, and boating opportunities. But with demands on our water supplies increasing, conservation and enhancement of this resource must advance at an equal pace if we are to sustain our natural system and the many attributes we take for granted.

Recently, CLF launched a new effort in northern New England to examine the impact and the future of the thousands of small dams which currently clog our rivers, fragmenting habitat, blocking fish passage, and degrading water quality. The majority of these dams were built in the 18th or 19th centuries to support industrial operations that have long since been abandoned. As the dams disintegrate, their remnants threaten wildlife and people and, over time, they alter stream flows and habitat--taking a significant toll on the health of our rivers.

In New Hampshire, roughly two-thirds of a total of 4,200 dams are inactive. Most of them are privately owned. CLF has been working with a variety of state, federal, and nonprofit organizations to pursue the possibility of removing priority non-viable dams that are subject to state control but in disrepair or not used. Recently I was asked to chair a special steering committee, the River Restoration Task Force, to consider removal of these dams, and possibly others, in the state.

This committee is working with federal and state agencies to identify essential removal projects in New Hampshire and coordinate state, federal, and private activities on funding and implementation. At present, the group is working to prioritize the watersheds and dams that could be removed and streamlining the permitting process, so that several dams could be targeted for removal by this summer. Currently, two dams on the Ashuelet River are in the permitting...