Maryland spent $12 million on a fish lift in 1991 to move American shad past Conowingo Dam; decades later, annual runs remained far below the 2 million-fish target

In the spring of 1991, Maryland's Susquehanna Electric Company (predecessor to today's Constellation Energy) completed a $12 million fish lift, an elevator filled with water, on the 94-foot-high Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River. The mechanism was designed to lift migrating fish over the concrete barrier so they could swim upstream and reproduce. Nearly thirty-five years later which undercounts the gap between 1991 and today by roughly a decade, the fish elevator, has become a reminder of how difficult it can be to use technology to overcome nature. According to a 2025 report from the Susquehanna River Anadromous Fish Restoration Committee, cited by Bay Journal, the lift moved only 2,051 American shad through the dam that season, far short of the 2 million-fish federal restoration target.

Why a fish needed an elevator in the first place