Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH) is a vertically integrated public utility that owns and operates nine hydroelectric projects in New Hampshire totaling approximately 70 MW. PSNH’s 1.1 MW Canaan Project is located on the upper Connecticut River in the states of New Hampshire and Vermont. The relicensing of this project was one of seven “pioneer” projects electing to utilize the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC or Commission) new Integrated Licensing Process (ILP) during the initial transition period.

During the ILP scoping process, resource agencies and intervenors requested that PSNH study the feasibility of upstream fish passage at the Canaan Project. There are no Atlantic salmon or other migratory fish in the project area: upstream fish passage was proposed for indigenous brook, and non-native brown and rainbow trout and other non-migratory resident fish. A standard Denil fishway and an Alaska Steeppass were determined to be technically feasible options and were evaluated for economic feasibility by PSNH’s consultant, Kleinschmidt Associates

A simulation model was created to identify dam operations and configurations that provided high survivals for Juvenile salmonids migrating out of the Snake River. Regional fisheries managers sought to identify ways to operate and configure the dams and the fish transportation system (barging) to provide safe passage conditions and survival rates that met or exceeded criteria set forth in the Biological Opinion. The challenge was to determine whether a candidate operation or construction item provided the expected survival benefits when the operations and configurations of the entire system were considered. The expected influence of candidate operations and configurations was simulated to screen many millions of combinations and identify the subset that met minimum criteria. Acceptable combinations exhibited a range of survival values, construction costs, and power revenues. This approach provided a set of cost effective combinations from which a mix of survival benefits, construction costs, and power revenues could be chosen to meet stewardship goals.

The Public Utility District No. 2 of Grant County, Washington (Grant PUD) owns and operates two hydroelectric projects on the Columbia River in Washington State: Wanapum Dam and Priest Rapids Dam - Priest Rapids Hydroelectric Project FERC License No. 2114. On May 3, 2004, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS - then referred to as NOAA Fisheries) issued its Biological Opinion of the effects of the proposed action on listed species, in accordance with Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as amended (16 USC 1531 et seq.), regarding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) proposed action amending Grant PUD’s existing license for the Priest Rapids Hydroelectric Project (Project) to authorize implementation of an Interim Protection Plan for listed anadromous salmonids. Subsequent to NOAA Fisheries’ issuance of the Biological Opinion and consistent with the requirements of the Biological Opinion and within the scope of its own agency jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act, on December 16, 2004, FERC issued an Order requiring Grant PUD to “implement NOAA Fisheries’ Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (Actions 1 through 25) and sections 12.2 and 12.3 of NOAA Fisheries’ Biological Opinion filed with the Commission on May 6, 2004….”

In response to these requirements for downstream fish passage facilities, Grant PUD engaged in an extensive review of fish bypass concept designs to evaluate options available to increase the survival of smolts passing Wanapum Dam. Using a set of guiding principles related to the capture effectiveness, transport survival, construction costs, and construction feasibility of fish bypass options, the selection process resulted in the construction of the Wanapum Future Unit Fish Bypass (WFUFB) in early 2008. To evaluate fish responses to this newly-constructed fish bypass, in 2008 acoustically-tagged salmonid smolts were tracked as they approached and passed Wanapum Dam. The fish passage efficiency (FPE) and passage survival rate of three species of salmonid smolts that passed via the WFUFB were estimated.

Data analysis of the acoustically-tagged smolts showed a FPE of 57%, 34% and 31% for steelhead, sockeye and yearling Chinook (respectfully) and a passage survival estimate of 100%, 95% and 96% for steelhead, sockeye and yearling Chinook (respectfully).

This work, produced by John D. Echeverria  at Georgetown University Law Center, collects and describes the early cases that he and his research assistant Christine Faller have been able to locate involving takings and other constitutional challenges to laws requiring dam owners to install fishways to allow migratory fish to pass upstream and downstream.

A report submitted to the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans by the Office of Technology Assessment.

The focus of this report is technologies for fish passage around hydropower generation facilities and protection against entrainment and turbine mortality.Emphasis is given to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-licensed hydropower projects where fish protection is a subject of controversy and congressional interest due to the Federal Power Act (FPA) and the Electric Consumers Protection Act (ECPA). Thus institutional issues related to FERC-relicensing are also discussed. (Major points of controversy are highlighted in box 1-1.) Federal hydropower projects,especially in the Columbia River Basin, and irrigation water diversions in the Pacific Northwest and California are included to the extent that they provide information on fish passage technologies(see table 1-1). Many of the technologies discussed are applicable to other types of dams and water diversions. In fact, there are many more obstructions to fish passage that are not covered by FERC-licensing requirements, than are(approximately 76,000 dams versus 1,825 FERC-licensed facilities) (70).

The development of waterways, for hydropower and other industrial uses, has substantially altered many of the freshwater habitats of the planet and this has had considerable impact upon aquatic organisms. Industrial changes in aquatic ecosystems, including hydropower development, can restrict or delay fish migration, increase predation, affect water quantity and quality, and subject fish to direct damage and stress. This review will focus on the consequences for fish welfare and the progress towards developing the means to pass and protect fish at hydropower dams, at water withdrawal facilities, and in other engineered aquatic environments. It primarily concerns the large mainstem hydropower dams in the Columbia-Snake River Basin in the northwestern United States. Some methods for improving fish passage and protection at hydropower damsinvolve modifications and additions to engineered structures and occasionally use sensory stimuli such as light, sound, turbulence, or electric fields to influence fish distributions. Measures to improve fish survival, like spilling water at a dam to provide non-turbine passage, can cause other problems for fish, for example higher dissolved gas concentrations downstream. Reducing losses of fish in industrial environments is desirable in both the industrialized world, where many fish-related problems currently exist, and in the developing world, here lessons already learned may make future development more cost-effective and benign.

Formulation of recovery plans for endangered salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin of North America is a complex, controversial resource-management issue. This report presents an integrated assessment model to analyze the biological-economic tradeoffs in recovery of Snake River spring/summer-run chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).

The authors find that the removal of an estuarine predator, the Caspian tern (Sterna caspia), and elimination of adult salmon harvest are recovery measures that markedly increase long-term population-growth rates regardless of transport effectiveness. Dam breaching significantly increases growth rates under the best available estimate of transport effectiveness. The authors also conclude that recovery strategies in the cost-effective set depend on assumptions about transport effectiveness. Tern removal and harvest elimination are generally cost effective. At the best estimate of transport effectiveness, strategies that discontinue smolt transportation or breach dams are prevalent in the cost-effective set. In contrast, strategies that maximize transportation are prevalent in the cost-effective set if transport effectiveness is relatively high.

This paper links biology and economics through an integrated model thus providing a valuable tool for science-based policy and management.

The paper can be downloaded from Michael R. Moore's website at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/micmoore/working_papers

Fish and hydroelectric dams are striving to coexist across the country. With conservation groups as well as state and federal agencies pressing for severe controls on water releases, hydropower production has been cut substantially in many cases. At the same time, dam operators have undertaken some sophisticated construction programs to meet the challenge. To date, many strategies employed on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have been both costly and ineffective. The Army Corps of Engineers is trying to address its problems partly with extensive model studies. But, they have found that "the more you learn, the more complicated it gets." Together the failures of the Corps, as well as other federal agencies have caused the power utilities to call for reductions in spending for all fish programs, which they say are ineffective.

This paper examines the effects of dam construction and operation in the Columbia River Basin on salmon populations. While the hydrograph of the Columbia River has been significantly impacted by dams, the seasonality of regulated flow on the Snake River has been less affected. The Snake River storage has been used for agricultural diversion while the Columbia has been for electrical generation. The reservoir system has effects on flow velocities, water chemistry (nitrogen supersaturation), habitat availability and reliability, and stream temperatures. Dams block about one third of the Columbia River watershed to access by anadromous fish.
Effects of Dams on Salmon;
Fish kills occur as a result of several characteristics of dams. Bruising, descailing, and stress caused by by-pass facilities; susceptibility to prey following delivery from by-pass to outfall; estuary damage; effects on the homing ability of fish; limited success in fish use of by-pass facilities. The effect of migration speed on smolt survival is uncertain but assumed to have an impact. More research is necessary.
Mitigation of Dam's Effects on Salmon:
Seven measures for mitigation of dams' effects on salmon are discussed
1. Fish passage facilities 2. Predator control 3. Transportation 4. Spill 5. Flow augmentation 6. Reservoir drawdown 7. Dam removal.

Migratory bull trout ( Salvelinus confluentus ) historically spawned in tributaries of the Clark Fork River, Montana and inhabited Lake Pend Oreille as subadult and adult fish. However, in 1952 Cabinet Gorge Dam was constructed without fish passage facilities disrupting the connectivity of this system. Since the construction of this dam, bull trout populations in upstream tributaries have been in decline. Each year adult bull trout return to the base of Cabinet Gorge Dam when most migratory bull trout begin their spawning migration. However, the origin of these fish is uncertain. We used eight microsatellite loci to compare bull trout collected at the base of Cabinet Gorge Dam to fish sampled from both above and further downstream from the dam. Our data indicate that Cabinet Gorge bull trout are most likely individuals that hatched in above-dam tributaries, reared in Lake Pend Oreille, and could not return to their natal tributaries to spawn. This suggests that the risk of outbreeding depression associated with passing adults over dams in the Clark Fork system is minimal compared to the potential genetic and demographic benefits to populations located above the dams.