Not only is the water clearer in the North River these days, but little living rainbows are appearing — the silvery rainbow smelt.

Standing on a bank of the North River last week, a state marine biologist in hip-waders held a single smelt in his fingers — all 6 inches of it — as fifth-graders from the Witchcraft Heights School in Salem looked up in wonder. That smelt, he told the children, is one of 40 found so far in nets this spring.

"It's not many, but it's encouraging," said Brad Chase.

It's especially encouraging considering no smelt were found just two years ago. Smelt are not only good eating for humans, Chase said, but a key player in the food chain of larger fish.

Since 2001, when Chase found smelt eggs attached to rocks on the river bed — the first sign that fish life was returning to the North River — the state Division of Marine Fisheries has tracked the river's progress. While not dramatic, the increasing number and species of fish is a sign that the once-sick river is getting healthier.

Among other "firsts" this year: a white perch was found in a North River net. By using a new net station, the catch of mummichogs, a small bait fish, increased by the thousands.

Salem Sound Coastwatch, a local organization that works to protect Salem Sound and its watershed, kicked off North River Awareness Week last week with a smelt count on the North River. Although the final results aren't in, the 40 found so far is a record.

Still, officials say the number has to be put in perspective. What is a record for the North River is just the average haul every time a net is checked in the Fore River in Braintree, which has the best smelt run in the state.

The state is checking the rivers now because this is spawning season. The smelt swim up the rivers to lay their eggs in fresh water and then return to the ocean. The North River and the Crane River in Danvers have been chosen for a smelt restoration project because they have the best spawning areas. Four years ago, small rocks were laid on the bottom of the shallow and narrow North River to provide a better home for those eggs. A portable hatchery, or egg incubator, was placed in the Crane River last year.

"A lot of people look at (the North River) and don't think it holds any life," Chase told the schoolchildren. "But it's improving all the time."

The veteran state official even made the school kids a promise: "One of these days, we're going to come down here and have a fish fry."

NORTH RIVER FISH CATCH

Note: The totals are based on 18 net hauls in 2004, 27 in 2005 and 25 so far this year. The state also switched this spring from small to standard nets and faced them downstream rather than upstream.

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SALEM -- As a swan paddled nearby, two men in hip-boots hooked a chain to a large truck tire and watched as a crane hoisted it from the shallow, murky waters of the North River.

The crane operator swung the tire over a tidal gate and dropped it into the back of a yellow pickup truck, where it was reunited with an old bike, metal pipes and a rusty car door.

At low tide yesterday morning, a crew from Salem Harbor Station used a 30-ton crane to clear decades of debris from a narrow opening of the North River by the North Street overpass.

Although the work was done with little fanfare, it is an important step, an official said, in the reclamation of a river that was poisoned by years of industrial waste and abused by generations who used stretches of it as a liquid landfill.

"It's definitely baby steps and little victories along the way," said Rob Gough, director of Salem Sound Coastwatch, formerly Salem Sound 2000.

Salem Sound Coastwatch, which is spearheading efforts to bring the river back, portrayed yesterday's junk haul as a victory for many, from the city planners who want to redevelop the former industrial corridor along the river to the tiny rainbow smelts who are slowly returning each spring to spawn.

"The stuff that is being pulled out here are impediments to the progress of migratory smelts," Gough said, standing not far from a discarded refrigerator along the riverbank.

Until two years ago, there were no signs of smelts in the river, which once teemed with a fish considered a good barometer of the health of a river. Smelts are recreational fish to some and also an important element in the food chain. They are eaten by striped bass, bluefish and other larger fish.

After a state marine biologist discovered eggs upstream near the Peabody line in 2001, officials began monitoring the smelt migration. Last year, Salem Sound Coastwatch, Salem Harbor Station and a large group of volunteers laid rocks in a river bed along Harmony Grove Road in an effort to improve the spawning grounds. Only a handful of eggs were found last year, but more were discovered this year during a mid-April count.

"They found 39 eggs," said Gough. "It isn't great numbers given the level of effort, but the good news is smelt are making their way up to that spawning area and laying eggs."

As part of North River Awareness Week, groups cleaned the banks along the smelting area, picked up trash from Furlong Park on Franklin Street, and held a festival in Leslie's Retreat Park.

SSCW

Since 1991