Use of telemetry and hydraulic modeling to evaluate and improve fish guidance efficiency at a louver and bypass system for downstream-migrating Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts and kelts

Abstract

A fish protection system has been installed in a power canal at a hydroelectric facility on the Exploits River, Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, Canada. The river has an anadromous Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) population in the order of 30 000 returning adults. A louver and bypass were installed to protect downstream migrating smolt and kelt from entering the penstocks and turbines in the power canal at the generating facility. The efficiency and effectiveness of this protection system has been evaluated since 1997 through a combination of conventional telemetry, use of a digital spectrum processing (DSP) telemetry system with multiple antennae array, Hoy tagging, and velocity profiling along the louver array and throughout the canal. Initial monitoring in 1997 using conventional telemetry indicated low fish guidance efficiencies (FGEs) in the area of 25% for smolt. In 1998, a DSP telemetry system was installed along the louver array to attempt to identify problem areas where fish were passing through or under the louver. This work also recorded low smolt FGEs in 1998 (24.3%). However, the DSP system did identify sites along the louver array where fish were being lost, and hydraulic measurements suggested fish loss was related to hydraulic turbulence and irregularities in the guidance velocities. In 1999, a scale model of the power canal and bypass system was constructed at the University of Waterloo Engineering Department’s Hydraulic Laboratory and a number of structural and operational changes to the system were evaluated. Based on the results of laboratory hydraulic modeling and DSP telemetry, a number of changes were made to the louver and bypass, prior to operation in 1999 and 2000. Monitoring of smolt out migration in 1999 and 2000 indicated a substantial improvement in smolt FGEs to 54.0 and 65.3%, respectively, and the DSP system identified areas where further improvements could be made. This paper demonstrates the utility of a sophisticated telemetry system in the evaluation of fish protection systems and how the technology can be applied towards the optimization of the effectiveness of fish by-passes.