Will the number of alewife increase more slowly under the plan than if the alewife was reintroduced without monitoring?

Yes, that is correct. The plan drafters ran computer simulations projecting 1,000 different possible combinations of alewife population growth and bass reproductive success over a 50-year period. Based on those outcomes, it would take 10 to 30 years longer because of the plan to reach the point where 4.45 million fish were passing the dams, versus no constraint on alewife population growth.