This year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services National Fish Passage Program provided Missouri nearly $100,000 to reconnect more than 28 stream miles, remove barriers to fish passage fish passage
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move freely throughout their life to find food, reproduce, and complete their natural migration cycles. Millions of barriers to fish passage across the country are fragmenting habitat and leading to species declines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program is working to reconnect watersheds to benefit both wildlife and people.
Learn more about fish passage , assess and survey low-water crossings, and conduct an inventory of low-head dams.
Along with more than $775,000 in partnership funds, the Fish Passage Program will support four fish passage projects in Missouri. On a national scale, the program provided nearly $8.3 million to help reopen 1,716 miles of streams and rivers and 9,471 acres to improve habitats for recreational fish and imperiled aquatic species.
The widespread issue of fish passage is the result of the construction of millions of culverts, dikes, water diversions, dams and other artificial barriers that impound and redirect water for irrigation, flood control, electricity, drinking water, and transportation -- all changing natural features of rivers and streams. As the Services understanding of the response of fisheries to these barriers has grown, efforts have begun to reverse the negative impacts theyve had on our fish and environment.
The Fish Passage Program uses a voluntary, non-regulatory approach to work with municipal, state, tribal and federal agencies, as well as non-governmental agencies to reopen and improve aquatic habitats in the nations streams and rivers. The program provides funding and technical expertise to partners to remove or bypass dams and other obstructions and replace or improve culverts under roads or railroad tracks -- all to allow fish to swim through. The goal of the program is to restore native fish and other aquatic species to self-sustaining levels by reconnecting habitat that has been fragmented by barriers.
Four projects were funded by the Fish Passage Program this year in Missouri. One such project will fund replacement of a low-water crossing over Draffen Branch at Sandbank Road, a tributary of Moniteau Creek in Cooper County. Replacing the existing low-water crossing with a newly designed, clear-span low water crossing will facilitate fish passage by opening up more than 17 stream miles above the project site. The project will also improve sediment transport, increase stream stability, and benefit existing populations of the federally endangered Topeka shiner.
Locust Creek in Linn County will also benefit from a Fish Passage Program project that will restore stream hydrology and associated wetlands in Pershing State Park, and reduce erosion and sedimentation in the lower portions of the creek.
"Together with Missouri Department of Conservation we are leading the Midwest in identifying, measuring and prioritizing fish passage barriers," said Joanne Grady, assistant project leader at the Columbia National Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office (NFWCO) in Missouri. Columbia NFWCO is the Services lead office for the four Fish Passage Program projects in Missouri. "We are able to select projects that most benefit threatened and endangered species."
Other Fish Passage Program projects in Missouri include an inventory and assessment of low head dams throughout the state, and a survey of low-water crossings and low-head dams within the states Big River.
Since its inception in 1999, the National Fish Passage Program has removed or bypassed 655 barriers, restoring access to almost 10,612 miles of river and 51,361 acres of wetlands. The Program has also been able to leverage an average of three dollars for every project dollar spent through its partners.
Click here for a complete list of funded 2008 projects: http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/fwma/FishPassage/pdfs/NFPP08projects.pdf
For more information about the Fish Passage Program, visit our home page at: http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/fwma/fishpassage
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