News Release
| Release Number: | 97-092 |
| Dated: | 8/19/1997 |
| Contact: | Heidi Y. Helwig, 503-808-4510 |
Portland, Ore. -- Answers to why salmon runs have been declining may lie in a number of places, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hopes its new John Day Dam Juvenile Fish Sampling and Monitoring Facility will reveal some of them. John Day Dam is near Rufus, Ore., on the Columbia River.
Survival data compiled at John Day Dam will provide important information for in-season and long-term management of the river system to improve salmon survival. In addition, a variety of other research work relevant to all migrating fish species will be done at this facility. Juvenile salmon moving downriver during the 1998 spring migration will be the first to use the facility.
"Fish need to be evaluated systemwide to give us a better feel for where the system is working best and where improvements should be made," said Stuart Stanger, facility project manager. "Each project on the Columbia River is different. Differing site conditions, plus structural or placement variations make them unique," he said, explaining the need for a way to gather more information. "This means there is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution to the fisheries issue, making finding answers that much more complex," he said.
Existing computerized monitoring systems at several dams in the Columbia-Snake river system activate and read PIT tags (passive integrated transponders) placed in certain fish at various hatchery and up-river capture locations. With PIT tags, biologists can track a fish during its journey to the ocean and back. The tag is similar to a fingerprint in that it provides unique information, identifying each fish and allowing scientists to compile data on that fish. One of the benefits of the PIT tags is that, once inserted, they are truly passive in that all the information on the fish can be read as a fish passes a detector, much like a clerk can determine the cost or category of a grocery item as it passes a barcode reader.
Today, we already know that a number of factors have combined to bring runs of salmon and other species to near extinction. Some attribute those factors to the four Hs: habitat, harvest hydropower and hatcheries. For the Corps, efforts to find ways to get fish past the dams on juvenile journeys downstream and final journeys upstream are paramount. To maximize those efforts, more scientific information about the fisheries and their migrational behavior is needed.
Some data is currently gathered at John Day, but the new facility will substantially improve data on juvenile fish movement and survival.
The entire facility, still in the final phases of construction, is 2,400 feet long. It consists of a 1,200-foot-long elevated chute that extends from the powerhouse to the dewatering building, and a transport flume of nearly the same length that extends to the sampling and monitoring facility and connects into the existing outfall. P.K. Contractors of Spokane, Wash., should complete the work this fall at an estimated cost of $23 million.
The smolt monitoring project is considered a priority by fisheries agencies and the Northwest Power Planning Council as they seek to increase survival of anadromous or migratory fish in the Columbia-Snake river system. (Editors Note: If you missed the Aug. 19 media event and would still like a tour of the facility, please call the Portland District Public Affairs Office at (503) 808-4510. Photos available upon request.)