Since the precedent-setting breaching of the Edwards Dam in Maine last year, several other dams in New England have been removed or breached to help protect fish, and officials are considering the same fate for hundreds more. Unlike the huge dams in the West owned by the feds, the New England dams tend to be small and privately owned, and many of them are no longer used to produce power. In Massachusetts, about 3,000 dams block streams and rivers, and the arguments to save them tend to be based on aesthetics and history, not on power production. The state has embarked on a dam-removal program targeting dams that are decayed and causing the most harm to fish.
