Nebraskaland

NEBRASKAland July 2018

NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.

Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/999185

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 43 of 59

44 NEBRASKAland • JULY 2018 denied, so to bolster the idea, Schainost obtained a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program to fund a University of Nebraska-Lincoln study to identify the best type of fishway to build. There are more than 6 million known barriers to fish passage in the United States, including dams, road culverts blocking rivers and streams and even levees blocking access to wetlands. These barriers prevent the natural, instinctive movement of fish, which swim upstream for two reasons: "To spawn and to feed, to look for new groceries," said Schainost. "In fall they go back downstream looking for winter habitat. They go downstream over the dam and they can't get back." In some cases, blocking this upstream movement to historic spawning areas has led to dramatic declines in fish populations, most notably migratory salmon populations in the Pacific northwest and Northeastern Atlantic states, where segments of those populations are listed as threatened or endangered. But many other species of fish, big and small, including the Topeka shiner, pallid sturgeon and channel catfish in Nebraska's rivers, also migrate and have been affected by dams. The National Fish Passage Program looks to remove barriers, including dams, when possible, but helps build fishways where it isn't. But much of the research into fish bypasses, and the construction of those bypasses themselves, have been designed to benefit cold-water species such as salmon and trout. "Salmon are strong swimmers and strong jumpers," Schainost said. "Our native Great Plains fishes aren't." The UNL study tested two options they believed would work for fish in the Cedar River. One would create a long channel with a series of pools and riffles to connect the lake to the river below. The other, a Denil fishway, first developed by a Belgian researcher in 1909 for salmon, would build a series of pools connected by chutes filled with baffles to slow the flow. Both were designed taking into account the cruising, sustained swimming and darting speed of catfish and other warmwater fish species found in the Cedar, insuring the slope and flows would be low enough that the fish could navigate the ascent, which varies from 9 to 12 feet depending on river and reservoir levels. With a smaller footprint, the village opted for the Denil fishway. A second grant from the Fish Passage Program in 2009 funded the design and engineering of the fishway. Now "shovel ready," the idea received a $400,000 grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust on its fourth application in 2014. With another $101,000 from the Commission's Aquatic Habitat Program and cash and in-kind assistance from the village, the project was built in 2015 and began operating in 2016. Nebraska Game and Parks Commission Fisheries Biologists Brett Roberg of Kearney, Tony Barada of Lincoln and Mark Porath of Lincoln shock and net fish from a resting pool in the fishway in May of 2017 for a tagging study designed to measure the effectiveness of the fishway.

Articles in this issue

view archives of Nebraskaland - NEBRASKAland July 2018