By Guy Page
A bill to allocate $550,000 to operate the Salisbury fish hatchery next year and create longterm funding options was approved by a Senate committee last week and goes to the full Senate this week.
S312, sponsored by the Senate Institutions Committee, was approved Friday by that committee and faces a preliminary vote in the Senate on Tuesday.
The bill will be reported to the Senate on behalf of Institutions by Sen. Russ Ingalls (R-Orleans) who has spearheaded the effort to restore funding to the fish hatchery vital to maintaining the state’s trout population.
The Department of Fish & Wildlife announced earlier this year, with some regret, that the hatchery would be closed for budget reasons. Sportsmen pushed back with an advocacy campaign. Ingalls said before the Town Meeting break that there is near-unanimous support for the bill in the Senate.
As introduced, the bill also would require that any decision to close the hatchery would rest in the hands of the Legislature, not the Fish & Wildlife Department.