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Three inch long American Eel at breached Union Gas Dam, Messalonskee Stream, Waterville, Maine. June 13, 2005.

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Messalonskee Stream has flowed for millennia before the City of Waterville, Maine existed. For countless springs, baby American eel scaled the bedrock ledges of Messalonskee from their birthplace in the wide Atlantic Ocean.

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Waterville, Maine -- Home of Colby College, one of the most prestigious centers of higher education in the United States of America.

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Waterville, Maine -- Home of the celebrated Maine International Film Festival.

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Waterville, Maine -- Native home of U.S. Senator George Mitchell, ardent defender of the U.S. Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act.

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Waterville, Maine -- A city named for the pure waters of the Kennebec River and Messalonskee Stream.

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Waterville, Maine -- A city which in one century turned these pure waters into trash-filled cesspools of human and factory waste.

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Waterville, Maine -- A city which told 5 generations of its children to never go near the Kennebec and Messalonskee because their waters were too filthy to touch.

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Waterville, Maine -- A city whose waters are just now becoming clean again.

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Waterville, Maine -- A city waking from a century of sleep, rubbing its eyes like Rumplestiltskin.

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As it has for 10,000 years, a stream still rushes headlong through the heart of Waterville, Maine.

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For nobody knows how long, this stream has been called Messalonskee.

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