News Release
| Release Number: | 06-054 |
| Dated: | 4/26/2006 |
| Contact: | Diana J. Fredlund, 503-808-4510 |
PORTLAND, Ore. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced today that the two sea lion exclusion devices it had temporarily removed at Bonneville Lock and Dam do not appear to impact fish passage, based on the total fish count from both north and south fishways.
The Corps reinstalled the two SLEDs in fishway entrances near the Washington shore about 1 p.m. today after a 48-hour test to determine if fish passage was being impacted by the presence of the gates.
“We did not believe the low fish count was because fish were being blocked by the SLEDs,” said Robert Willis, environmental branch chief with the Corps. “There was almost no difference yesterday between the number of fish moving through the Bradford Island and the Washington shore fishways.” According to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fish counters, Tuesday’s fish count of 444 spring Chinook salmon was evenly split: 218 passed through the Bradford Island fishway, where all SLEDs remained in place, and 226 passed through the Powerhouse 2 fishway near the Washington shore, where two of the 12 gates had been removed.
“Based on the increasing fish counts, we feel pretty confident that the spring migration has begun,” Willis said. “The number of fish passing the dam began to increase before we removed the SLEDs, and yesterday was the largest number to date. That’s good news for everybody.” Although the migration appears to have started, the number of salmon is still very low, Willis cautioned. “We are glad to see more salmon passing the fish counters,” he said. “But it’s still a very late run and the numbers are still very small.”
Corps officials will continue to monitor the SLEDs to confirm no adverse impacts are identified. “The test results were consistent with the research we conducted when we first installed the SLEDs,” Willis said. “We will continue to check results as long as the SLEDs are in place. In addition to counting the fish passing the dam, we are radio tagging a number of them.” Corps biologists tag a small number of salmon and release them downstream of the dam to learn how quickly the fish travel from the release point to the fishways. New radio antennas located near the fishway entrances will allow biologists to monitor the fish behavior specifically near the SLEDs.
The Corps does not plan to temporarily remove any more SLEDs at this time. “If regional managers are still concerned, we will discuss it with them,” Willis said.