Six-Year Acoustic Telemetry Steelhead Study

The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Biological Opinion (BO) on Long Term Operations of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project includes a Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA) action to undertake experiments utilizing acoustically-tagged salmonids to confirm proportional causes of mortality due to flows, exports, and other project and non-project adverse effects on steelhead smolts out-migrating from the San Joaquin Basin and through the southern Delta. Water operations for fish protection in the San Joaquin River include increasing river flows during salmonid emigration, reducing export diversions and reverse flows, and directing fish away from the south delta diversion facilities via physical and nonphysical barriers.

The six-year study was designed to evaluate:

Juvenile steelhead route selection at channel divergences in the south Delta and along the mainstem San Joaquin River, and
The effects of San Joaquin River tributary inflow and south delta water operations on survival in specific reaches and through the Delta to Chipps Island.

This was a collaborative study involving multiple partners including: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of Washington, the U.S. Geological Survey, FishBio, and California Department of Water Resources.

Six-Year Acoustic Telemetry Steelhead Study Reporting Annual Reporting

2016