LEWISTON – River restoration is the focus of next weekend’s seventh annual Maine Rivers’ Fall Conference near the Androscoggin.

The conference will take place Saturday, Dec. 4, from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Bates Mill complex.

After talks by Maine Rivers’ President Bill Townsend and Executive Director Naomi Schalit, morning sessions will include a legislative panel and question-and-answer session with lawmakers, a program on non-point source remediation in Washington County and another on how teachers from two Maine school districts presented lessons on watershed restoration.

Programs after lunch will include a closed session with lawmakers aimed at developing strategies to clean up the Androscoggin River, a session on how to start and run a restoration project and a tour of the Bates Mill’s historic waste disposal systems.

Additionally, another legislative training session is scheduled to help train river advocates in strategies for working with lawmakers, followed by a workshop describingt non-point source pollution.

Also during the afternoon, watershed group activists will share experiences, and Jeff Varricchione of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection will discuss a proposed state volunteer river monitoring network.

The dinner speaker will be Art Spiess, Maine’s state archaeologist, who is also a senior archaeologist with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. His program will be “Archaeology and Maine Rivers: The Last 10,000 years.” It will consider the question: How can we restore Maine’s rivers without knowing what they were once like?

The conference-only cost, which includes breakfast and lunch, is $30; it is $40 for the conference and evening program (includes breakfast, lunch and dinner). For more information or to register, can call Cyndie at 622-3101, ext. 211, or go to mainerivers.org.