Heinz Contributed

Friends of Merrymeeting Bay’s fifth presentation of their 25th annual Winter Speaker Series, Restoring the Lower Androscoggin River, features Steve Heinz of Trout Unlimited.

Heinz earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Navy commission from the University of Louisville in 1970 through its NROTC program. After a career as a naval flight officer, he retired with the rank of commander in 1990. The Navy brought Heinz to Maine where he has lived and worked since 1988 and where he became active in Trout Unlimited over 17 years ago.

Heinz’s serious involvement in conservation began when he organized volunteer support for a Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife survey of Martin Stream in Turner in 2005. For 10 years, he served as conservation chairperson for the Sebago Chapter Board of Directors and spearheaded volunteer efforts including fish passage impediment surveys and Trout Unlimited Embrace-A-Stream grant projects, highlighted by his coordination of two dam removals, executed in July 2013.

In 2015, Heinz worked with the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve to remove a third dam in Arundel. In 2016, working with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other government agencies and non-profits, he organized and coordinated a series of proposals resulting in nearly $500,000 in grant money for five habitat restoration projects.

Heinz continues to serve Trout Unlimited on the Maine Council as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Action Coordinator, and is also an active member of the Royal River Alliance; where his most recent project was to produce an online fishing guide for the watershed. He lives in Cumberland Foreside.

The presentation takes place Wednesday, Feb. 9, at 7 p.m.

Friends of Merrymeeting Bay’s presentations are being held via Zoom and are accessible via fomb.org.