Fish Passage Program at the Virginia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office
What is Fish Passage?
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move through an aquatic system among all habitats necessary to complete their life cycle. The National Fish Passage Program opens up aquatic travel routes that have been blocked or fragmented.
Learn More About Fish Passage HereFish Passage Program in Virginia
The Service’s National Fish Passage Program provides funding as well as engineering support for habitat restoration projects. The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture and the Atlantic Coast Fish Habitat Partnership also help support habitat restoration in Virginia with funding and technical support coordinated through this office.
Since 1999, our office and our partners have removed over 25 barriers to fish passage , and opened over 1800 miles of rivers. These efforts will contribute millions of dollars in economic value to Americans every year, through increased tourism, fishing, and recreation. These projects also improve water quality, increase safety for people recreating in rivers, and protect public and private property from impacts of flooding.
Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture
Atlantic Coast Fish Habitat Partnership
What We Do
The Virginia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office collaborates with partners to:
- Remove barriers to fish passage and public safety hazards.
- Reopen 1,760 mainstem and upstream functional network miles.
- Reconnect fish and mussels to previously fragmented and degraded habitat.
- Remediate obsolete and poorly designed structures for flood resiliency.
- Receive over $2.3M in competitive funding and leverage $4.1M in partner funding to complete National Fish Passage Program and aquatic habitat projects.
Culvert Assessments
- In 2014 the Piedmont Environmental Council partnered with Virginia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office and Trout Unlimited to evaluate road-stream crossings as barriers to free passage of Eastern Brook Trout.
- The University of Massachusetts River and Stream Continuity Project protocol and the Vermont Culvert Aquatic Organism Passage Screening Tool were used to survey and classify crossings.
- Collaboration ensued with partners and communities to establish the Piedmont Region Trout Stream Restoration Initiative.
Criteria for Projects:
- Impediment to Aquatic Organism Passage and at risk of failure.
- Due for replacement.
- Allopatric brook trout populations present.
- Proximity and reconnection to pristine and protected habitat.
Piedmont Region Trout Stream Restoration Initiative
Eligible activities include:
- Projects that provide fish and aquatic organism passage and restore connectivity by removing in-stream barriers.
- Projects that benefit federal trust resources and at-risk species, and improve resiliency.
- Dam removals, culvert replacements, and fishways.
Who can apply:
- State, county, local governments
- Native American tribal governments and organizations
- Nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status
- Independent school districts, private, public, or state controlled institutions of higher education
- Public and Indian housing authorities
- or profit organizations, small business, and individuals
Fish Passage Portal
A resource for all stakeholders of fish passage and aquatic connectivity projects, presented by the Federal Interagency Fish Passage Task Force. The portal is a “one-stop shop” for anyone who needs information, funding, or resources to improve fish passage and aquatic connectivity projects. We provide partners, communities, landowners, States, Tribes, and public lands managers the tools to find funding across the Federal government, as well as access to data, planning, and geospatial information.
Fish Passage Projects by the Virginia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office
