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Dam’s destruction will help bring saltwater shad back to central NC

For two centuries or so, the Uwharrie River dam backed up water to power a grist mill, continuing to wall off the river even after the mill ceased operating in the 1970s.

Last month, a dam-busting coalition that seeks to restore naturally flowing waterways demolished the 12-foot-high Lassiter Mill Dam.

The dam’s removal opened 15 miles of the upper Uwharrie, northeast of Albemarle. It now connects 40 free-flowing river miles that one day will welcome the return of a saltwater fish – in the eastern Piedmont, surrounded by the Uwharrie Mountains, nearly 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

The fish is the American shad, a regular visitor to Piedmont rivers more than 100 years ago. In spring, shad for eons made their way from the Atlantic Ocean via the Great Pee Dee River in South Carolina, into North Carolina’s Pee Dee River. From the Pee Dee, schools of shad peeled off and swam up the Uwharrie (pronounced yuu-WAHR-ee) to spawn in the river and its tributaries.

The silvery, hard-fighting, 2-to-6-pound fish could return by the thousands beginning in five years. They’ll hitch a ride around the Blewett Falls and Tillery dams,

Article source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/09/07/4294561/dams-destruction-will-help-bring.html If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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