action was taken. In 1976 and 1977, reports pointed out several problems related to the gates' function due to erosion, winter ice jams, and "unsatisfactory fishway operation". It was not until 1978 that New Brunswick's Department of Transportation commissioned a study of the problems. The final report recommended three alternatives for action: to continue operation "as-is", to continue operation without the gates, or to eliminate gate leakage and amend the operation protocol. The third alternative was chosen two years later, but did not substantially improve fish migration as expected. The provincial government decided to open the gates between 15 April and 7 July 1988, to allow fish to migrate up the stream. This was repeated from 26 September to 31 October 1988, and in the spring of 1989 and 1990 during low tides. In 1991, New Brunswick's Department of Oceans and Fisheries recommended opening the gates from April to December each year. A provincial government committee report recommended an additional seven options for the modification of the causeway in May 1992, but the government did not act upon any of these options due to the low "cost-benefit" factor. More reports documented problems related to the passage of fish in the river until 1995, when the Department of Transportation agreed to open one gate from April to December, as suggested four years earlier. A project was then organized in December 1996 to begin a trial for the systematic opening of the gates during the year, but conditions could not be physically met, and it was terminated on 1 June 1999. In February 2001, the Niles Report proposed an additional four modifications to the causeway project: to either replace the fishway, open the gates during peak fish migration, open the gates permanently, or replace the entire causeway with a bridge. An Environmental Impact Assessment study was commissioned in 2003 to develop and summarise these options, and on its completion in 2005, it announced the recognition of "Option 3" and "Option 4" as possible solutions. The first option had been ruled out following the evaluation of other fish passage models, which were deemed inapplicable to the river. The second, suggesting systematic gate-opening periods, was ruled out because of the inability to cater to every marine species' migration periods. Option 4 was split into three sub-options, mainly to list possible bridge lengths: 170, 280, and 315 metres (190, 310, and 344 yards). The provincial