Snake River White Sturgeon Conservation Plan ... - Idaho Power

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Status and Habitat Use of Snake River White SturgeonIdaho Power Companyfacilities that blocked upstream migration of anadromous fish. Intense research on upstreampassage for salmon began in the 1950s and continues today. The large-scale development ofsteam and nuclear electric facilities during the 1960s and 1970s raised additional issues aboutprotecting fishery resources. The need for large volumes of cooling water at these facilitiescaused concern about the potential effects of entrainment and impingement of fish.Consequently, fish screening and diversion technologies were developed.In recent years, fish-protection studies have focused on protecting outmigrating juvenile salmonat hydroelectric, water-diversion, and water-intake facilities. This focus has led to a number ofnew technologies, including surface-bypass systems, intake-diversion screens, trapping schemes,barge or truck transport, and “fish-friendly” turbine design.In contrast, because sturgeon in North America have been studied very little, less is known abouttheir nature. Literature on the biology, life history, habitat needs, and successful fish passagesystems is limited and often difficult to obtain. Accordingly, there are gaps in our understandingof white sturgeon that can only be filled with appropriate and focused research. Literature on thefish passage needs of sturgeon is particularly limited. Most of our information comes fromRussia where sturgeon have always been a commercially important species.A general decline in both anadromous and resident fish populations in river systems throughoutthe United States has led to efforts to quantify losses of downstream migrants and developprotection, or mitigation, techniques. One avenue of research and study stems from the FERCprocess for relicensing hydroelectric facilities. In general, the process requires the owners ofhydroelectric facilities to estimate the impact of project operations on fish resources and providemeasures for mitigating any impacts. This requirement has led to much research on developingprotection and passage techniques that may prove effective at hydroelectric facilities.This study uses previous fish research, which is primarily based on salmonids, and supplementsit with available knowledge of sturgeon to examine options for upstream and downstreamsturgeon passage. Since our knowledge of sturgeon movement behavior is incomplete, we havebased our examination of passage options on the following assumptions.Facilities for downstream passage would be used primarily by juvenile and adult fish—Downstream movement may be motivated by juvenile or adult sturgeon searching for improvedfeeding and rearing habitats or escaping poor environmental conditions. Unlike salmonids,whose downstream migration is a biological imperative, downstream movement of sturgeon is,to some extent, probably motivated by environmental factors and thus more difficult to predict.Based on mark-recapture estimates for C.J. Strike Dam and four lower Columbia River projects,IPC investigators assumed an annual rate of 2% for downstream movement of sturgeon. IPCtelemetry studies also indicate that there is no discernable downstream movement betweenreaches by reproductive sturgeon seeking suitable spawning habitat.Upstream passage needs to accommodate large, mature fish—We assume that spawning adultsmay move between reaches upstream to seek suitable spawning habitat when conditions within areach are unsuitable. We assumed that 10% of sturgeon greater than 125 cm were reproductiveduring any given year. Since a sexually mature female generally is at least 5 ft long and thelargest sturgeon of record captured in the Snake River during IPC’s sturgeon surveys wasPage 14Hells Canyon Complex
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