May 3, 2016 — Exelon Corp. has pledged in a deal announced last Monday to work to enhance spawning fish passage at Conowingo Dam over the next 50 years, seeking to revive the Susquehanna River’s meager stocks of American shad and river herring.
The Chicago-based company and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they had reached agreement to improve at least one of two fish lifts at Conowingo and meanwhile start trucking migratory shad and river herring upriver past it and three other dams in Pennsylvania.
The agreement comes after years of negotiations between the company and wildlife agencies and conservation groups, which were seeking to revive the once-legendary spawning runs of shad and herring. The number of returning fish each spring has been trending downward since the 1980s, and wildlife agencies and conservationists wanted Exelon to make potentially costly upgrades to fish lifts there as a condition of renewing its federal license to operate the hydroelectric facility.
The company’s license to operate Conowingo expired in 2014, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has extended the permit while the parties — including Maryland —attempt to hash out their differences. An even more contentious issue involves what Exelon may have to do about the buildup of nutrient-laden sediment in the dam’s reservoir, which studies have shown could complicated efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay’s water quality.