Hydropower energy installations like dams and tidal and wave energy projects can cause impacts to riverine, estuarine, and marine resources. NMFS works with other federal agencies and project operators to avoid or reduce project impacts to fish and their habitats. Currently, NMFS focuses its work primarily on the impacts of hydropower dams, which can block up- and downstream migrations of diadromous fish such as salmon, shad, and striped bass.
NMFS works with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and dam operators to safeguard these species and their habitats by providing protection, mitigation, enhancement, and fish passage measures in the dam licensing process. Since FERC licenses have a term of 30 - 50 years, NMFS’s involvement affords once-in-a-generation opportunities to protect or make accessible many miles of upstream habitat, and to improve habitat degraded by changes in water flow and quality from dam operations.
For information on how NMFS addresses the effects of tidal and wave energy on fish and their habitats, please refer to the renewable ocean energy.
