About the Project

The Maine Road-Stream Crossing Survey determines where poor design or degraded condition of road culverts hampers the ability of fish to access upstream or downstream habitat. This information helps project partners to set priorities for restoring critical fish habitat sites.

For this project, Wells Reserve workers visited all road-stream culverts along the Kennebunk River, from its mouth on the border of Kennebunk and Kennebunkport to its far reaches in Lyman.

Four teams visited 83 sites, 21 of which posed severe barriers to passage. Twenty sites had perched outlets, 5 had perched inlets, 2 had inlets blocked 50% or more, and 1 had its outlet blocked by a tide gate. Most structures surveyed were undersized, exhibiting large scour pools (n=25) and lack of substrate within the crossing (n=30), indicating increased velocity of water moving through the structure.

Project Period

2010

Project Partners

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Maine Rivers
• Mousam and Kennebunk Rivers Alliance

Resulting Reports

• Kennebunk River Road-Stream Crossing Survey 2010
• Kennebunk River Survey 2010 Report Appendices
• Data submitted to statewide inventory of road-stream crossings