Fish Passage and Protection

All fish passage projects arise from an initiative or objective to protect or restore a population of one or more fish species within a watershed.

Our multidisciplinary team of biologists, engineers, and regulatory specialists have outstanding knowledge and experience in the process of evaluating and developing fisheries protection and restoration plans in the context of fish passage requirements. We work with stakeholders and clients to facilitate and streamline a planning process to develop a plan that uses a sound science approach with objectives, priorities, and action items designed to optimize the benefit to the species while balancing our clients’ needs and providing cost-saving ideas along the way.

Our dedicated fish passage team has conducted feasibility studies for more than 100 projects in North America. The process begins by consulting with the client regarding goals, objectives, and key elements of station operation that must be considered to develop an effective conceptual solution. With agency prescriptions or recommendations as a guide, we work with clients to develop a solution that addresses safety, compliance, revenue, and maintenance concerns.

Our fish passage feasibility studies often involve biological assessments including fisheries composition, relative abundance, and spatial distribution surveys of fish in the project area, as well as an entrainment/impingement analysis. Also, opinions of probable construction cost for the fish passage alternatives, and conceptual drawings of each of the proposed alternatives are developed.

Obtaining agency concurrence of a fish passage design concept is one of the most important phases before a client commits potentially significant resources to preliminary and final design efforts.

As a highly competent fish passage consultant, Kleinschmidt advocates for our clients and facilitates productive and efficient dialogue with agencies, non-governmental organizations, and stakeholders. Kleinschmidt’s experience and ability to advocate for our clients with the agency personnel who will be involved in their projects often leads to reduced project costs because we understand the agencies’ expectations and how to negotiate more practical approaches that are more constructible and acceptable to the owner and do not impact fishway effectiveness.

While designing fish and eel passage facilities of all types over the past 30 years, we developed a library of design components that we easily customize for each of our client’s projects to reduce design costs. Our library includes designs for eel passage, elevators/lifts, Denil ladders, Alaskan Steeppass, vertical slot, pool and weir, nature-like, sorting facilities, and downstream passage. We have designed more than a dozen fish lifts as well as the largest nature-like fish passage project in the Eastern United States.

Fisheries resource agencies typically require effectiveness testing to assess whether a fishway is operating as intended. We have conducted more than 40 effectiveness studies using an approach of consulting with our clients to identify and screen techniques for testing that are practical and cost-effective for the project.

After completing the field-testing component, we review, assure the quality of, and archive collected fish passage data. We have developed innovative statistical analyses techniques to automate fish tracking data reduction using algorithms that reduce processing times and costs and enhance data credibility with resource agencies. Our assessments are routinely accepted by resource agency personnel without the need for extensive additional data gathering or analysis resulting in cost savings for our clients.