BENTON -- The Board of Selectmen on Monday night will finalize details for an April 23 special town meeting on the harvesting of alewives this spring.

Board Chairman Mark Brown said that when the alewives' migration from the sea begins next month, the town wants to be ready to take advantage of the harvest. According to the warrant under consideration for the April 23 vote, the town would designate an individual or company to harvest the bait fish, oversee the operation with the alewife warden and charge a fee.

Now that the Fort Halifax Dam in Winslow has been torn down, alewives will migrate up the Sebasticook River to Benton.

Brown said that the town has seven or eight offers. The board has not determined a fee, he said. Alewives warden Rick Lawrence has been working diligently on the harvesting issue, he said.

"It depends on how many fish come up through," he said. "We expect upwards of a million alewives to be coming through."

Monday night's meeting, at the town office, begins at 7.

Brown said that the board plans three questions for the April 23 meeting:

• To see if the town should negotiate with NetEra Energy Resources to purchase land along the riverbank, including access from Clinton Avenue, for an alewife-harvesting site and for access for recreational paddlers and anglers.

• To see if the town should appropriate funds for the capital-improvement fund for that purpose.

• To see if the town should reimburse the alewife warden for expenses (no salary) and the current federal rate for mileage/car expense in carrying out the duties for which the warden has been appointed.

Selectmen have not decided on a fee to be charged to the harvesters, who sell their catch to lobster fishermen.

"It depends on how many fish come up through," he said.

Also on Monday night, the board will hear an update from the state Department of Transportation, regarding planned repairs to the Benton Neck Road. The DOT plans to begin work in the spring of 2010, Brown said.

Brown said the concrete base of the road is breaking down on the edges.

Larry Grard -- 861-9239

lgrard@centralmaine.com