An unusual explosion along the Rappahannock River on Feb. 23 defined the day for thousands of onlookers. As planned, at least 650 pounds of explosives blasted a 40-meter-long hole through the bottom of Embrey Dam near Fredericksburg, Va. Immediately, the water began to flow as it hadn’t in about 150 years, since the predecessor to this 6.7-m-tall barrier was constructed. Local, state, and federal officials had determined that the dam, which no longer contributed to the local water supply, was too expensive to maintain and blocked fish movement.
With that blast, American shad, blueback herring, and alewife migrating from the Atlantic through the Chesapeake Bay could move into 106 more miles of potential spawning habitat upstream of the dam. “To finally see this happen, after working on it for 10 years . . . was exciting,” says Alan Weaver of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries in Richmond. He identifies himself as a fish-passage biologist.