Qualitative assessment of the impacts of proposed system operating strategies to resident fish within selected Columbia River Reservoirs

Abstract

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), and US Army Corps of Engineers (COE) are presently conducting the System Operation Review (SOR) for the Columbia River basin. The SOR began in 1990 and is expected to provide an operating strategy that will take into consideration multiple uses of the Columbia River system including navigation, flood control, irrigation, power generation, fish migration, fish and wildlife habitat, recreation, water supply, and water quality. This report provides descriptions of each of the non-modeled reservoirs and other specified river reaches. The descriptions focus on the distinct management goals for resident fish: biodiversity, species-specific concerns, and sport fisheries. In addition, this report provides a qualitative assessment of impacts to the resident fish within these reservoirs and river reaches from the 7 alternative system operating strategies. In addition to this introduction, the report contains four more sections. Section 2.0 provides the methods that were used. Reservoir descriptions appear in Section 3.0, which is a synthesis of our literature review and interviews with resident fish experts. Section 4.0 contains a discussion of potential impacts to fish within each of these reservoirs and river reaches from the 7 proposed system operating strategies. The references cited aremore » listed in Section 5.0.« less