These are good times for the Sandy River.

In recent weeks, work crews have been removing a dam on the Sandy in Norridgewock.

The 313-foot wide structure has been in place for more than 100 years but in the interests of a better waterway, it is coming down.

One reason is to give sea-run species like salmon a chance to thrive in the Kennebec and its tributaries, of which the Sandy is one.

The Sandy is not the first waterway to see a dam removed.

The Edwards Dam that held back the Kennebec in Augusta was taken down six years ago.

And the 151-foot Smelt Hill Dam on the Presumpscot was deleted in 2002.

But to think that the unherald Sandy is being prepped for salmon is hard for Your Scribe to believe.

(An aside, perhaps obvious: My camp is on the Sandy River in New Sharon, though the cabin is far from the waterway).

And how is this for good press, from a local paper: "Considered prime habitat for the Atlantic salmon upstream in New Sharon and beyond, the Sandy is already stocked with salmon."

The Sandy?

The river runs from the foothills of the western mountains through central Maine past Farmington and down toward Starks.

It runs through New Sharon - and on the subject of fishing - where Your Scribe has caught only sunfish, yellow perch and an angular white fish that looks suspicously like a sucker.

So I am ready to pull in lunker-like salmon.

The Sandy is 69 miles long, according to a (self-published) text on the waterway.

It has always been in the shadow of such waterways as the Kennebec, Androscoggin and the Penobscot.

In truth, much of the attention paid to those rivers in the '70s and '80s was generated because of pollution.

But the rivers have been cleaned up, and many sections are fishable and swimmable.

Which doesn't take anything away from the Sandy.

It is a clean river, and on many parts of it there is not a house, barn, camp or even another boater on the water.

That was the case Sunday morning, when my son, Drew, and I went for a paddle.

We saw wild flowers, and leafy trees, and small creeks emptying into the river, and one lovely osprey that soared high above the cool (if translucent) water.

No summer palaces or noisy jet-skis, but only one elderly yet blissful woman enjoying the morning with her dogs.

On the same day we were paddling, we read about fresh-water mussels being relocated (for their health) during the removal of the dam.

The news over the weekend was all good: removal of the dam, the preservation of the mussels, and the (hoped-for) arrival of salmon from the Atlantic, via the Kennebec.

Yes, the Sandy appears to be going through an exciting period of upward mobility.

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