interested party: Despite major flooding endangered sturgeon using Yellowstone diversion

3/3/23

Despite major flooding endangered sturgeon using Yellowstone diversion

Pallid sturgeon are living dinosaurs but when the Missouri River dams were built it sealed the fate of the now endangered fish. Scientists and the US Army Corps of Engineers have learned that unless newly hatched pallid sturgeon have several hundred miles of unimpeded waters they cannot survive.

Below the Missouri River dams pallid sturgeon are showing signs of recovery but above?Test flows target the demographic unit of pallid sturgeon found in west-central Montana on the UMR between Fort Peck Dam and Lake Sakakawea and on the lower Yellowstone River. Fort Peck Dam, located at Missouri River Mile (RM) 1772, limits upstream migration of adult pallid sturgeon while the Lake Sakakawea headwaters (approximately RM 1500) limit downstream dispersal of larval pallid sturgeon. The effects of implementing test flows were evaluated from Fort Peck Reservoir downstream to Gavins Point Dam on the South Dakota/Nebraska border at RM 811. Hydrological modeling for the alternatives was performed on the entire Missouri River system to the Mississippi River confluence. Because no meaningful hydrological differences between any alternative and the No Action Alternative were evident downstream from Gavins Point Dam, human considerations analyses were limited to areas upstream of this point. This encompasses a sequence of river and reservoir segments that includes Fort Peck Dam and Reservoir, Garrison Dam and Lake Sakakawea, Oahe Dam and Lake, Big Bend Dam and Lake Sharpe, Fort Randall Dam and Lake Francis Case, and Gavins Point Dam and Lewis & Clark Lake. [Fort Peck Dam Test Release Final Environmental Impact Statement September 2021]
Endangered pallid sturgeon, paddlefish, catfish and most other aquatic organisms cope with lethal levels of mercury throughout the South Dakota portion of the Missouri River so as those species are extirpated or even go extinct zebra mussels will colonize the system. Lewis and Clark Lake is at least thirty percent full of toxic sediment but that impoundment and Lake Sharpe can’t spend money fast enough to reverse the infestation of the imported bivalves in hydroelectric equipment and water courses.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announces the completion of the Lower Yellowstone fish bypass channel project near Glendive, Montana –water is flowing and the channel navigable. The success of this, three-year, $44 million construction project was due in part to the joint coordination efforts and contributions of intergovernmental organization resources to help improve the passage structure for the endangered pallid sturgeon and other native species around this intake diversion dam. In 1990, pallid sturgeons were listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act. USACE, the Wildlife Service, and Reclamation have been working in partnership to determine the effects of the Lower Yellowstone Project on the species. Two primary issues were identified, entrainment into the Lower Yellowstone main canal and lack of passage success over Intake Diversion Dam. [Omaha Division, US Army Corps of Engineers]
Spring runoff allows pallid sturgeon into Yellowstone tributaries like the Powder and Tongue Rivers to spawn but the Corps canceled the Spring Pulse below Lewis and Clark Lake in 2022 due to inadequate runoff into the Missouri River and is likely to do the same this year as levels are below average again. The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks department's Fish and Wildlife Commission has banned the technique of snagging to catch paddlefish at the new intake fish bypass channel on the Yellowstone River near Glendive. The purpose is "to improve upstream and downstream fish passage for pallid sturgeon and other native species, including paddlefish, while maintaining water diversions into the lower Yellowstone project main canal," a FWP press release states. [Sidney Herald]

ip photo: the Corps announces its presence near the headwaters of the Boulder River in Jefferson County, Montana.

Updated 2023 runoff forecast for #MissouriRiver Basin above Sioux City, IA continues to be ⬇️avg at 21.1MAF 82% avg
Read More 👉https://t.co/Q8FE3sSP72 @OmahaUSACE @KC_USACE @NWSMBRFC pic.twitter.com/r29YYbLhWP
— NWD USACE (@NWDUSACE) February 7, 2023

Forty miles of the Clarks Fork – Bridger Creek to the Yellowstone River – is impaired based on high levels of nitrogen, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, phosphorus and sediment, among others. These are pollutants associated with agriculture. https://t.co/4ddeVFRQiD
— Tom Lutey (@TomLutey) February 21, 2023

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Wild Horses of Red Rock

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