Photo By Janet Meredith | Environmental Pool Management on display at the Lincoln Shields Recreation Area in...... read more read more
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Sustainable Rivers Program held their national meeting May 23 – 25 at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, Mo. More than 80 attendees convened to review accomplishments and determine their focus for environmental efforts to enhance the management of water and ecosystems at Corps infrastructure projects.
The interdisciplinary team collaborated and focused their experience on sustaining relationships, capturing big ideas, strengthening connections between local state and federal partners and stakeholders. The three-day event concluded with a site visit to the district’s Rivers Project Melvin Price Locks and Dam to see one of the program’s success stories.
This nation-wide initiative called the Sustainable Rivers Program is cooperatively managed by The Nature Conservancy and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The program began in 2002 with eight rivers and the goal is to improve the health and life of rivers by modifying infrastructure operations to achieve ecologically sustainable flows while maintaining or enhancing other project benefits.
Principle Deputy for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Mr. Jaime A. Pinkham noted, “What impressing me most about celebrating twenty years of the Sustainable Rivers Program is that partnerships matter, science matters, and nature matters and we need to think differently on how we operate these assets and natural wonders that have been entrusted to us to manage in a way that provides a multitude of benefits.”
Management of flows through the Sustainable Rivers Program began on the Green River in Kentucky. Declines of mussel populations noticed by an ecologist sparked concern and gave rise to the first collaboration between The Nature Conservancy and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers to consider reservoir management alternative operations to better manage ecosystems such as adjusting the transition from summer pool to winter pool at Green River Lake to promote recruitment of mussels. Out of this meeting, the first changes from water managers could be measured and the ideas began to spread to other water managers managing general reservoirs.
“Work on the Green River was a successful proof of concept that existing reservoirs could be used as a tool to restore ecosystems. Given the documented and continued decline of freshwater species, it is important that programs like Sustainable Rivers work to apply that strategy for as much of the nation’s water infrastructure as possible,” said Jim Howe, Sustainable Rivers Program lead for The Nature Conservancy.
According to the National Inventory of Dams, there are 90,000 dams in the United States. These dams provide important functions for society, but many were built before biologists fully understood how those projects would affect water temperatures, sediment regimes and connected wetlands, as well as the associated effects for native fish and wildlife populations.
With knowledge gained through the Sustainable Rivers Program in hand, water managers are leading with science to drive collaboration internally and bring together state, federal, and non-governmental academic institutions to develop new operating ideas that produce positive results.
What started at Green River for one reservoir is expanding and now involves 48 rivers across the United States. Sustainable Rivers teams use a strategic and science-based approach to identify and implement operational changes that enhance benefits provided to the nation. All changes are accomplished in the context of existing infrastructure authorizations.
Sustainable Rivers Program lead for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers John Hickey stated, “It is rewarding to see the Sustainable Rivers Program grow and deliver environmental benefits. We recently surpassed 12,000 river miles engaged. But we also know that total is only a fraction of the more than 53,000 river miles the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers is involved with nationally. It is motivating that, even after 20 years, most of the Sustainable Rivers Program’s potential to improve the health and life of rivers is still ahead of us.”
In the meeting, key future directions for the program were discussed and debated. Moving forward, it is critical that Sustainable Rivers stay focused on achieving the overall program goal of more environmental benefits from already built U. S. Army Corps of Engineers water resource infrastructure, promoting good stewardship of rivers and associated ecosystems, leveraging partnerships, and expanding program efforts to new rivers and infrastructure. Ongoing Sustainable Rivers Program work in the St. Louis District is an outstanding example of ways the Sustainable Rivers Program can compliment and help expand ongoing and already successful environmental efforts at Corps infrastructure.
The Sustainable Rivers Program success stories are not just limited to pool management in the St. Louis District. Within the district, efforts are underway to improve the spawning success of the state endangered Lake Sturgeon, at Melvin Price Locks and Dam in Alton, Ill. and on the Salt River at the Mark Twin Lake Reregulation dam in Monroe City, Mo. Efforts on the Salt River are just beginning, but the work at Melvin Price Locks and Dam, through a partnership with Missouri Department of Conservation, has resulted in only the second and third documented spawn of Lake Sturgeon in Missouri in the last 40 years! Historically, the Lake Sturgeon population has continued to decline due to pollution, restricted migration routes, and inaccessible spawning habitat.
Lake Sturgeon which can live up to 100 years, do not begin spawning until they are 25 years old and seek out rocky substrates with fast-flowing currents as suitable habitat for spawning and an 8-to-14-day egg incubation period. When conditions are right, this kind of habitat can occur below Corps infrastructure. The Sustainable Rivers Program has been a critical partner in this success at Melvin Price Locks and Dam, by providing necessary funds for modeling flow conditions below the dam. Those results have in turn allowed Corps water control managers to manipulate gate operations to create the right spawning flow conditions, all with no additional operating costs to the navigation project. The Sustainable Rivers Program has also provided important funding for continued monitoring and data collection at the site as the district works to refine its efforts with an eye towards incorporating the changes into the routine operations.
“The work in the St. Louis District are a couple examples of the value of the Sustainable Rivers Program,” stated Brian Johnson, Chief of the Environmental Section in St. Louis. “There are just tons of potential for the program to be expanded to the many to the more than 600 dams owned and operated by the Corps. Sustainable Rivers is really helping us find ways to operate our projects for their authorized purposes and still create habitat for plant and animal species that live within our project footprints. It may seem like a cliché’, but the Sustainable Rivers Program is the definition of finding win-win scenarios at our infrastructure projects.
Through Sustainable Rivers, water managers, reservoir operators, and scientists are working to create better conditions for migratory shorebirds, restore flows to rejuvenate floodplains and wetlands, and improve fish spawning and passage while finding innovative ways to monitor results and incorporate environmental strategies into operations.
| Date Taken: | 05.23.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.06.2023 15:35 |
| Story ID: | 446367 |
| Location: | MISSOURI, US |
| Web Views: | 104 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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