Background:
PIT tags have been used since 1985 for research and monitoring of anadromous fish resources in the Columbia River Basin (CRB).  In 1987, federal and state biologists began marking production lots of hatchery Chinook and steelhead, augmenting (and ultimately replacing) the established freeze-brand marking program.  In 1988, federal, state, and tribal biologists expanded their research programs to include the PIT tag marking of juvenile wild salmon and steelhead.

In the Columbia River Basin, juvenile salmonids are injected with PIT tags, released, and then passively interrogated as they pass through bypass/collection fish facilities located at hydroelectric dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers.  The salmon then remain in the ocean for 1-4 years before returning to their original breeding grounds. During their homeward migration they must ascend a number of fish ladders located throughout the Columbia River Basin.

In 2000, the Basin completed a process to upgrade the region’s PIT tag interrogation system to International Standards Organization’s 11784 and 11785 (ISO FDX-B) specifications.  One of the benefits of changing to this technology was the potential to increase the read range of the tag, and detect fish at fish ladders.  This was not possible with the PIT-tag systems used prior to 2000.

Most of the dams at the FCRPS projects have fish ladders.  The ladders are of a weir and pool design.  The weir walls have one or two orifices typically located near the bottom of the weir and close to the ladder walls.  In addition, each weir has a complete or partial overflow.  In 2001/02, orifice-based PIT-tag detection systems were installed at all fish ladders at Bonneville Dam.  

By 2003, technology had improved sufficiently to install larger PIT-tag antennas into fish counting windows or vertical slots.  These are superior to the orifice-based systems because every fish must pass through these antennas in order to transit the ladder. This lead to more detection systems being installed at Ice Harbor and Lower Granite Dams in 2004, along with improvements installed at the Bonneville and Lower Monumental Dams in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

The fisheries community needs to install additional systems capable of detecting migrating juvenile and adult salmonids to aid in evaluating restoration strategies.  That need is reflected in NMFS Biological Opinions that require data generated from the adult interrogation system to support investigations that address:  1) Smolt-to-adult return rates (SAR) information (to answer such questions as whether there is any survival differences between transported juveniles and those that migrated in-river); 2) conversion rates between dams (to track losses of fish between dams, straying rates and routes; 3) estimations of travel time between dams; and 4) fall-back rates for different fish ladders.

Furthermore, the addition of the full-flow systems at Ice Harbor (2006), Lower Monumental and John Day (2007) will improve reach estimates for the different ESA-listed populations during their juvenile out migrations. These potential extra data collection points are critical now that the fish managers are bypassing more fish via the dam spillways to improve survival of salmonids migrating through the federally operated hydroelectric dams within the Columbia River Basin.  Therefore, we need to detect all of the tagged fish when they do go through the bypass facilities.  The full-flow systems give the fish managers the option of getting those detections, but still passing the juvenile salmonids in larger volumes of water.

This work statement provides for additional labor and equipment for the installation of the Little Goose Full Flow PIT-tag detection system.

Since 1990, the PTAGIS project has performed system installations and operations and maintenance of PIT tag interrogation systems in the Columbia River Basin as part of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s (NPCC) Fish and Wildlife Program (FWP). PTAGIS project staff is uniquely qualified to provide installation resources for adult PIT tag interrogation systems and integrate the raw data into the PTAGIS data system.

Activity and Project Description:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and its contractors will install fishway infrastructure to support the interrogation of PIT tagged fish through extended range, full flow bypass system at Little Goose Dam during fiscal year 2007.

Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission will perform tasks to complete the installation of electronic instrumentation and data systems that are necessary to provide raw PIT detection information to the Columbia Basin PIT Tag Information System (PTAGIS) at this location. Due to funding limitations, the labor component of this project will be born by PTAGIS (FWP 199008000), and this contract will fund the equipment required for the installation.