Hydro Leader May 2022 by Water Strategies

Leader ydro H VOLUME 3 ISSUE 5

may 2022

Jim Chandler on Idaho Power’s Plans to Improve Fisheries and Water Quality in the Snake River

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Jim Chandler on Idaho Power’s Plans to Improve Fisheries and Water Quality in the Snake River

Contents May 2022 Volume 3, Issue 5

5 F ish-Friendly Strategies By Kris Polly 8 Jim Chandler on Idaho Power’s Plans to Improve Fisheries and Water Quality in the Snake River 14 H ow the Relicensing of a Hydro Project Led to Improvements for Salmon on Washington State’s Sultan River 18 A Partnership for Endangered Fish on the Colorado River

22 F ish-Friendly Hydropower Production at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Pacific Northwest Facilities 26 T he Bureau of Reclamation’s David Raff: How the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funds Aquatic Restoration 30 H ow Voith Hydro Designed Improved-Fish-Passage Turbines for Ice Harbor Dam 34 F uture Leaders of Waterpower (FLOW): A New Networking Group for Young Professionals

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Elaine Robbins, Copyeditor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Tom Wacker, Advertising Coordinator Cassandra Leonard, Staff Assistant Eve Giordano, Media Assistant William Polly, Media Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Assistant Amanda Schultz,Media Assistant SUBMISSIONS: Hydro Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or hydro.leader@waterstrategies.com. ADVERTISING: Hydro Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com or Tom Wacker at tom.wacker@waterstrategies.com. CIRCULATION: Hydro Leader is distributed to all hydroelectric facility owners in the United States, to hydrorelated businesses, and to every member of Congress and governor’s office. For address corrections or additions, or if you would prefer to receive Hydro Leader in electronic form, please contact us at admin@waterstrategies.com.

39 JOB LISTINGS Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022

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COVER PHOTO:

Jim Chandler, Manager of Fish and Water Quality Programs, Environmental Affairs Department, Idaho Power. Photo courtesy of Idaho Power.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF IDAHO POWER.

Copyright © 2019 Water Strategies LLC. Hydro Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Hydro Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Hydro Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Hydro Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

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Fish-Friendly Strategies

he hydropower industry is often plagued by the misperception that the term fish-friendly dam is an oxymoron. In fact, hydro operators work tirelessly to ensure that their facilities are safe for fish and that the rivers on which they are located remain hospitable habitats. Idaho Power has taken recent relicensing processes as an opportunity to carry out hatchery programs, temperature mitigation activities, river channel maintenance, and dam upgrades. We speak with Idaho Power’s Jim Chandler about these efforts. Similarly, when Snohomish County Public Utility District in Washington had to relicense its Jackson Hydroelectric Project, it committed to improving the situation of local salmon and steelhead through water release management, fish passage structures, and river restoration. Natural Resources Manager Keith Binkley tells us more. The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program brings together a diverse group of stakeholders to support several endangered species. We hear more about it from three of the professionals involved. Most of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ largest hydroelectric dams are located on Pacific Northwest rivers that also provide habitat for salmon and steelhead. We interview five Army Corps professionals about the agency’s

By Kris Polly

efforts to improve fish passage and habitats. We also speak with the Bureau of Reclamation’s chief engineer, David Raff, about how Reclamation’s Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program will use the $250 million allocated to it by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Voith Hydro recently designed and installed an improvedfish-passage turbine at the Army Corps’ Ice Harbor Dam. Brian Van Baush and Jason Foust tell us more about it. Marycella Dumlao of the National Hydropower Association tells us about the recently launched Future Leaders of Waterpower, or FLOW, program, which aims to attract diverse professionals and facilitate knowledge transfer. Professionals across the hydro industry are working to ensure that this green, zero-carbon energy source is generated in a way that ensures the flourishing of fish and other aquatic species. I hope you find their stories inspirational. H Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Hydro Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Jim Chandler on Idaho Power’s Plans to Improve Fisheries and Water Quality in the Snake River Jim Chandler: I manage the fish and water quality programs in the Environmental Affairs Department at Idaho Power. I started with Idaho Power 32 years ago, right out of graduate school. I worked as a fish biologist, and as time progressed, I moved into a supervisory role, implementing various fishery programs. Recently, the water quality and fish teams were put in one group, so now I focus on managing our fish and water quality programs. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Idaho Power. Jim Chandler: Idaho Power has a large service territory, mostly covering southern Idaho and a portion of eastern Oregon. We have 17 hydroelectric projects, 12 of which are along the mainstem Snake River. Hydroelectricity usually accounts for more than 40 percent of our generation portfolio. The department’s primary focus is to work on the licensing, compliance, and relicensing of those hydro projects, 15 of which are licensed by FERC. Most of those projects have undergone some level of relicensing work, and we are currently in the process of relicensing two: American Falls and our largest, the Hells Canyon Complex (HCC), which includes Brownlee, Oxbow, and Hells Canyon Dams. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your fish hatchery program.

Located along the Idaho-Oregon border, Hells Canyon Dam and Reservoir are the farthest downstream of Idaho Power’s hydroelectric facilities.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

8 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF IDAHO POWER.

he Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) relicensing process for several of Idaho Power’s 15 FERC-licensed hydroelectric projects has spawned fresh thinking about how to manage fish passage and water quality. Nearly 60 years after an agreement to change its mitigation program to a hatchery program for Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, Idaho Power is finding new approaches to keep populations healthy and address issues like high temperatures, dissolved oxygen (DO), dissolved gas, and connectivity. We speak with Jim Chandler, the environmental manager at Idaho Power, to learn more.

Jim Chandler: Our hatchery program started in the early 1960s. When plans were finalized to move ahead with the construction of Brownlee Reservoir and Dam, the uppermost and largest of our three HCC reservoirs, there were fall Chinook salmon, spring Chinook salmon, and steelhead spawning and rearing above the Brownlee Dam site. The initial plan was to pass those fish above Brownlee and collect juveniles during their downstream migration in a big net collection system in Brownlee Reservoir, and the net was built upon the completion of Brownlee Dam in 1958. However, it became clear that although trapping adults below the dam and transporting them above it to let them spawn naturally was successful, the downstream migration collection of juveniles did not work. Those small juvenile fish could not migrate through a large reservoir like Brownlee. They rely on water currents to orient them and help them migrate downstream, and in a reservoir the size of Brownlee, they were disoriented and were not able to find their way to the collection facility in sufficient numbers to sustain and maintain adult returns. A decision was made in 1964 to transition the passage program to a hatchery program. We developed four Idaho Power hatcheries, which primarily rear steelhead and spring Chinook salmon. As we progressed with implementing the

Located along the Idaho-Oregon border, Brownlee Reservoir is the largest storage reservoir in Idaho Power’s hydroelectric system.

hatchery program in the mid‑1970s, salmon and steelhead numbers were declining precipitously in the Northwest as other hydro projects were being developed in the region. There was concern on the part of the States of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington; the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS); and tribes about whether the hatchery production was sufficient to mitigate the losses associated with the construction of the HCC. In 1980, Idaho Power reached a settlement agreement with the three states and the NMFS that defined a fish production level that our hatchery facilities needed to meet. That formed the basis of today’s hatchery program. Today, our hatchery program produces about 1.8 million steelhead, 3 million spring Chinook, 1 million summer Chinook, and 1 million fall Chinook every year. Those fish are released in various places throughout the Snake River basin to mitigate the loss of fish above the HCC. The primary goal is to provide fisheries for the tribes and the three states affected by the lost production above the HCC. We fund the hatcheries, and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game operates them. The adult fish that return as a result of those fish releases are comanaged through agreements among the states and tribes. Hydro Leader: Are there also passage structures, such as fish ladders, on some of those Snake River dams? Jim Chandler: Because passage above the HCC proved to be infeasible, the fish managers decided not to release fish above the dams. Rather, all the fish are released in areas accessible from below our lowermost dam, including the Salmon River basin, which is a tributary of the Snake River. The fisheries that are created by our hatchery program include those in the Columbia River and the Snake basin below our lowermost dam. There is an adult fish ladder that hydroleadermagazine.com

leads to a fish trap at the base of Hells Canyon Dam, but that is the only active passage structure we have at any of our mainstem facilities. It is used primarily to capture salmon and steelhead as they migrate upstream to provide brood stock for the hatchery program. There are plans, through an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to modify this trap to also allow for the capture of bull trout, a listed species under the Endangered Species Act, as a means of upstream passage for this migratory fish. Upstream of Hells Canyon Dam, we are trying to restore connectivity for white sturgeon. The lack of connectivity has been an issue at our middle Snake River projects, specifically C.J. Strike and Bliss Dams, which are in an area with one of the more productive white sturgeon populations. Before the construction of C.J. Strike Dam, it is likely that the fish populations we currently see below the dam site migrated above it. Currently, there is no passage structure at that dam, nor is much understood about the passage requirements for large white sturgeon. One of the things we currently do to mitigate the lack of passage is to capture spawning adults below C.J. Strike Dam and transport them above it to allow them to spawn naturally in that reach. Our other primary mitigation activity is another hatchery program—our White Sturgeon Conservation Hatchery. Hydro Leader: What are the main issues for fish presented by your infrastructure and dams? Jim Chandler: The primary issues relate to water quality— specifically temperatures, DO, and total dissolved gas. We have worked on temperature downstream of Hells Canyon Dam during the fall Chinook spawning period. We’ve also worked with the Oregon and Idaho Departments of Environmental Quality (DEQs) to come up with May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

ADVERTISEMENT input into those waters to meet the offset goal. We have planted about 20 acres of riparian vegetation to create shade along three tributaries. We have also worked in some of the low-gradient, broad, shallow reaches of the mainstem Snake River to reduce the solar input on the surface of the water by expanding the floodplain around islands. To date, we have created about 24 acres of floodplain on two island complexes. Enlarging islands also creates channels that are narrower, deeper, and a little faster in some sections, enhancing aquatic habitats. This is a 30‑year program based on the idea that improving inflows into the complex will also improve the outflow. We are working on some of the bigger drivers that contribute to low-DO conditions, such as phosphorus loads flowing into the HCC. Upstream of the project, we have a program to help farmers convert furrow and flood irrigation to sprinkler irrigation, which greatly reduces the amount of sediment and nutrients coming into the river. This equates to better DO levels in the water. We’ve seen improvements over time, not only in the inflows to Brownlee Reservoir but in the outflows and within the reservoir itself. We have also installed distributed aeration systems in the turbine runners at Brownlee Dam. They draw atmospheric air down through the turbine blades and infuse it into the water to elevate the oxygen levels of the water coming out of the plant. We run the aeration system during the low-DO periods of the summer months. We are also in the process of designing and modeling flow deflectors that will change the spill characteristics from a plunge to more of a flow across the surface. This reduces the total dissolved gas levels below the dams. Upon receipt of the Hells Canyon license, we will be required to install flow deflectors at each of the HCC dams. We are designing those now. A Chinook salmon ascending the ladder to the Hells Canyon Dam fish trap.

10 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022

Jim Chandler: We’re still early in the implementation of the DO program, but between our actions and those of others, we are already seeing significant improvements to DO throughout the HCC. The flow deflectors I mentioned will be constructed after the issuance of the Hells Canyon license. The Snake River Stewardship Program is a 30‑year program, so we don’t expect to have measurable results soon. Hydro Leader: Do you also try to release colder water from your reservoirs in order to reduce the temperature downstream? Jim Chandler: Yes and no. We have discussed that as part of our consultations with various agencies during the Hells Canyon licensing process and during our work on our 401 water quality certifications with the DEQs. There was a desire by many to have selective withdrawals or to create a structure to release colder water from Brownlee Reservoir. Brownlee Reservoir is a large storage reservoir, and it does stratify by temperature. It has a significant volume of colder water in its deeper sections, and there has been interest in accessing that colder water and passing hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF IDAHO POWER.

measures that would offset or mitigate the issues related to temperature and DO at Brownlee Reservoir and total dissolved gas at all our projects. In terms of temperature, the main issue was that the water being passed is warmer than the standard at the initiation of the fall Chinook spawning period downstream of Hells Canyon Dam. Because the temperature effects are minimal for this short period of time, Idaho Power and the states developed a temperature offset program rather than trying to meet the spawning temperature requirement directly below Hells Canyon Dam. This thermal reduction was defined in units of energy or kilocalories of solar input. The goal is to reduce the level of solar radiation on the upstream waters flowing into the HCC to offset the difference between current conditions and the spawning standard. Modeling has shown that if summer water temperatures upstream of the complex can be cooled, we can meet the standard downstream. Idaho Power’s Snake River Stewardship Program involves working in the mainstem Snake above Brownlee Reservoir and in several of the tributaries above the HCC to reduce solar

Hydro Leader: Have your efforts had measurable effects on water quality?

Juvenile steelhead at Idaho Power’s Niagara Springs Steelhead Hatchery being prepared for transport and release in the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam.

it downstream to help meet temperature standards. That idea was evaluated for some time, but the colder water in Brownlee Reservoir has very low DO levels and contains toxins, such as methyl mercury. The worry was that passing that colder water could create more problems downstream. Those considerations are part of why we moved our attention upstream of the HCC and initiated the Snake River Stewardship Program. The stewardship program will not necessarily result in us meeting the fall Chinook temperature standard right away, but fall Chinook are actually doing relatively well below Hells Canyon Dam. In fact, their numbers have improved substantially over the course of the last 30 years. Much of this improvement can be attributed to the hatchery program as well as special operations at Hells Canyon Dam to protect spawning and rearing habitats. Meeting the temperature spawning standard is not an immediate need or an emergency relative to factors limiting the population, which is why we are addressing some of the longer-term issues above the HCC rather than trying to release colder water from Brownlee Reservoir now. That said, our 401 water quality certifications do include a condition related to a temperature threshold of 16.5 degrees Celsius, above which fall Chinook do not do well during the initiating of the spawning season. To address that, we are developing a temperature forecast model to predict whether temperatures at the start of the spawning period would exceed that level. If so, we may draw down Brownlee Reservoir to lower elevations in the fall than we otherwise would so that cooler water can come in and more quickly pass through the reservoir. Our 401 water quality certification also states that hydroleadermagazine.com

if we exceed a 16.5°C threshold for 3 years in a row, we will need alternative measures to the stewardship program. That could involve revisiting the idea of accessing the colder, deeper water in Brownlee with some type of structure. Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future? Jim Chandler: Idaho Power is fully invested in the Snake River. We’d like to see healthy fish and good water quality throughout the system. Through the programs we have been discussing, Idaho Power can actively improve conditions while we continue to provide clean hydropower. We plan to implement the programs that we have talked about at full scale. Many of these water quality programs and measures will be fully implemented when we receive the Hells Canyon license. That’s anticipated to occur within the next couple of years. We will also initiate several programs that we haven’t talked about, including bull trout passage at the HCC; evaluate salmon and steelhead reintroduction; and consider the possibility of increasing passage at Hells Canyon Dam over the long term. There is a lot in play that I think will significantly benefit aquatic resources over the long term. H Jim Chandler is the environmental manager at Idaho Power. He can be contacted at jchandler@idahopower.com.

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2022 Education Calendar USSD continues to offer top level education through workshops, webinars, and annual conferences. Webinars and workshops are offered live, and many are available on-demand through USSD’s Learning Center (https://training.ussdams.org).

These high-level learning opportunities address the needs for all sectors of the industry including consultants, contractors, dam owners, academia, etc.

Scheduled for the second quarter and beyond are the following trainings.

Webinars

Workshops

Learning Center

MAY 19, 2022

USSD will hold its Fall Workshop Series in October in Denver, CO.

Check out the Learning Center at https://training.ussdams.org for additional offerings as more training and professional development programs are added and for additional information on scheduled programs.

What is at Risk: How to assess potential dam failure impacts at a national scale?

Workshop topics include:

JUNE 16, 2022

• Leveraging PFMA to Perform SQRA

JULY 21, 2022

• Structural Behavior of Dams

Underwater Inspection Technical Causes of Failure of the Feijao Dam I SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Developments in Seismic Hazard in the Central and Eastern US (CEUS)

• Fundamentals of Facilitating a Semi-Quantitative Risk Analysis

On Demand Our On Demand Library is always open. Access the Learning Center and filter by “On Demand”

MISSION

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Empower professionals to advance sustainable benefits of dams and levees for society.

A world where all dams and levees are safe and valued by the communities they serve.

Questions about upcoming trainings or group training opportunities?

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How the Relicensing of a Hydro Project Led to Improvements for Salmon on Washington State’s Sultan River

Andrew McDonnell, an environmental coordinator at the Snohomish County PUD, conducts a fish survey in the Sultan River.

t’s been 10 years since Snohomish County Public Utility District (PUD) relicensed its Jackson Hydroelectric Project on the Sultan River. Since that time, the utility has followed through on commitments made as part of the relicensing agreement to manage the project for healthy fish populations. In this interview, Natural Resources Manager Keith Binkley looks back on a decade of mitigation interventions, including modulating the temperature of water released and scheduling flows to support salmon at all stages of their life cycle. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce Snohomish County PUD.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SNOHOMISH COUNTY PUD.

Keith Binkley: I got my bachelor’s degree in wildlife management at North Carolina State University and my master’s in fisheries science from Montana State University. Then I consulted for many years in California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. In 2002, I was selected for a fish biologist position at Snohomish County PUD and served in that capacity during the relicensing effort. For the last 10 years, I’ve served as the natural resources manager.

Keith Binkley: Snohomish County PUD was founded in 1936 and began water supply distribution in 1946. In 1949, the PUD became primarily an electric utility. We had few resources of our own and would basically purchase power from other entities and then distribute it within our service territory. We applied for a license with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a joint project that would both supply water for the City of Everett and generate power on the Sultan River. The license was issued in 1961; however, we initially proceeded only with the construction of the water supply reservoir, since the energy supply was not needed at that time. In 1976, we got a notification from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which supplied the majority of our power, that it was not going to be able to meet our needs in the future. In response, we started developing the 112‑megawatt hydropower portion of the project, which would eventually be named the Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project. Since that time, we’ve brought several additional small hydropower projects into our portfolio. Those are run-of-theriver facilities that don’t store water and that run when conditions allow, typically during the fall, winter, and spring, but not in the summer. We continue to be a major purchaser of power from the BPA. Our hydro operations constitute a small but significant portion of our portfolio, at about 7 percent.

ADVERTISEMENT Hydro Leader: How was the Jackson Hydro Project developed? Keith Binkley: Before the facility was developed for hydro, it operated to deliver water to the City of Everett in Snohomish County. The reservoir is still a significant water source. In 1981, to develop it as a hydro facility as well, we raised the dam and reservoir by 90 feet, which increased its volume 4½ times. Then, we built the intake structure, power tunnel, penstock, and powerhouse. The original license for that operation expired in 2011, and we went through FERC’s relicensing process. Our current 45‑year license term goes from 2011 to 2056. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the relicensing process. Keith Binkley: The relicensing effort took many years, and it was sometimes contentious, but ultimately, we were able to craft a settlement agreement that had assurances for the continued operation of the project for power generation purposes. It included measures that met the needs of the stakeholders, which included local towns, Snohomish County, the State of Washington, the Tulalip Tribes, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and American Whitewater. While we were in the thick of the negotiations that led to the settlement agreement, we had back-to-back meetings every other week for months to work through the suite of issues and to negotiate how to move forward. These settlement discussions occurred in parallel to the relicensing processes, so a lot of activity was going on at all times. Hydro Leader: What were the main stakeholder concerns that you had to address? Keith Binkley: The Sultan River is used by a variety of salmon species, including chum, pink, Chinook, coho, and occasionally sockeye, as well as by steelhead trout. These species have variable life cycle and habitat requirements that do not always align with each other. One of the first and most important needs was to develop a minimum instream flow regime that met those species’ needs over the course of the year. There are also ramping requirements, which dictate how much we can move the river up and down when we discharge water. We also had to consider physical process flows, or releases that mimic the attributes of a free-flowing, unregulated river system. These process flows include elements for actions like flushing fine sediment from the gravel. We are required to carry out flushing flows twice a year; larger-volume channel maintenance flows on average once every 2 years; and really big, channel-forming flows about once every 10 years. We also have flows for upmigration and outmigration. Besides flows for fish needs, we also provide flows for whitewater recreation. These are all the add-ons to the base minimum flow regime. The schedule hydroleadermagazine.com

over the course of the year can get complex as we strive to meet the immediate needs of the various fish species and to create dynamic habitats for their use. The annual precipitation in this basin is on the order of 165 inches, so a significant amount of inflow comes into the system. The capacity of the reservoir is probably only one-third of that volume. To meet our minimum flow requirements and our obligations for water supply, we have to be intentional in how we manage the reservoir. We generally try to take full advantage of the water and avoid spilling it out of the reservoir. That means we have stream gauges, we monitor the snowpack, and we typically draw down the reservoir in the fall in advance of the storm season. All this is mapped out in a schedule as well. We have what are called reservoir rule curves, which ensure that we meet all our obligations and minimize the risk of spill. If there is the risk of a drought, we may operate differently than we would otherwise.

Water flows from the Spada Lake Reservoir behind Culmback Dam into the Sultan River.

Hydro Leader: Do your mitigation activities also involve the construction of fish channels or fish passage structures? Keith Binkley: Looking at a river longitudinally, fish passage is always an issue. At one point, a natural landslide about halfway up the river system impeded the upstream migration of salmon, so we went in and modified that landslide to allow passage. After that, we created a passage at a historic diversion dam that the City of Everett has operated for water supply since 1930. We couldn’t remove the dam, because it is needed for backup in the event that our powerhouse is shut down for maintenance, because of low reservoir levels, or because of an unlikely catastrophic event such as a landslide taking out our pipeline. We knew that we would be asked to carry out the passage project at the diversion dam, and we completed it in 2016. With the passage now unimpeded, fish can use the full extent of the historic May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT captures outmigrating juvenile fish, are required under our license. We also do detailed habitat surveys and water quality monitoring. It is not uncommon for stakeholders to request this type of information during the licensing process so that the utility has an enhanced understanding and foundation for describing what’s going on in the landscape. We have fish biologists, wildlife biologists, and permitting and licensing experts on staff who are dedicated to these projects. Hydro Leader: Have you seen fish populations rebound in the 10 years since the relicensing agreement?

The Snohomish County PUD created fish passage at the City of Everett’s historic diversion dam, allowing migratory fish access to areas above the dam that had been blocked since 1929. Coho spawned 5 miles upstream after 2 weeks of the project being completed.

Hydro Leader: What other kinds of fish management activities do you carry out? Keith Binkley: We monitor the species and number of fish spawning in the river and the number successfully produced. The spawning surveys; the operation; and the smolt trap, which

16 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022

Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future? Keith Binkley: In terms of actions for the Sultan River, the 10‑year mark is a good time to pause and ask what’s next. I think we will build more logjams; place wood throughout the system; and build on what we’ve done in the past, including hopefully by creating some additional side channels. I think we’ll develop programs to enhance the riparian community, whether through the eradication of noxious weeds or the planting of native vegetation, and we may also acquire land as opportunities arise. We are always scanning for options. There are also some tributaries of the Sultan River that have fish passage challenges. While that falls outside the realm of the project’s influence, we’d like to stimulate conversations about improving passage in those tributaries as well. It is a good time to be a fish biologist. A lot of sharp minds are trying to move the needle on recovery, and there are lots of brilliant ideas and good coordination in place. H

Keith Binkley is the natural resources manager of Snohomish County Public Utility District. He can be contacted at kmbinkley@snopud.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SNOHOMISH COUNTY PUD.

range of their migration within the Sultan River. Because that reach is just below Culmback Dam and is bypassed by the penstock, pipeline, and powerhouse infrastructure there, the only means of delivering water to it was from the base of the dam. However, the water from deep in the reservoir is too cold for salmonids, so we were tasked with figuring out a way to warm it. The solution involved blending water from different layers of the reservoir using a water temperature conditioning structure that was completed in 2018. We also embarked on an aggressive restoration effort in the lower 3 miles of the river. In 2012, as a license requirement, we installed eight engineered logjams, which are massive wood structures that can provide habitat and reroute water into the floodplain. That can be highly beneficial, especially when it’s tied to side-channel projects. Those engineered logjams led to us enhancing over 2 miles of side channel habitat, which is important for the rearing stage of some of the species that use the Sultan River.

Keith Binkley: That’s a common question—when you spend millions of dollars on an action, people want to see results. Part of the problem in answering that type of question is that these fish are migratory and only live in the Sultan River for a limited portion of their life, meaning that we have an incomplete picture. Our license requires that we provide ample water for habitat and that the temperature is right, which carries even greater importance in light of climate change and forecasted future extremes. We can say that many of the elements to support recovery are in place within the Sultan River. We’re hoping that complementary recovery efforts in other areas where these fish venture during their lifespans, including the Snohomish River estuary, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Ocean, will ultimately translate to increased populations in the Sultan River. The actions we’ve taken on the Sultan River help build resiliency within the population.

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A Partnership for Endangered Fish on the Colorado River

An aerial view of the Redlands Dam, the fish passage structure (left) and the Redlands Canal (right).

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Julie Stahli: I am the director of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. I previously served as the recovery program’s deputy director for a couple of years and as the database manager prior to that. At one time or another, I’ve worked for partners in our program, including the States of Colorado and Utah, nonprofits, and water organizations doing either fisheries or policy work.

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Dale Ryden: I am the project leader at the Grand Junction Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. Our field station performs management and recovery actions on the four endangered fish species in the Colorado, Gunnison, and San Juan Rivers and in Lake Powell. I’ve been with this office for 32 years. I started off as a biological science technician, and I’ve worked my way up to the project leader position. Travis Francis: I am the deputy project leader for the Grand Junction Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. I’ve been with this office for 20 years, starting as a biological science technician and then working as a fish biologist. I moved into the deputy project leader position a couple of years ago. Hydro Leader: Please introduce our readers to the recovery program. Julie Stahli: The recovery program started back in 1988, when such programs were a novel concept. The partnership hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER ENDANGERED FISH RECOVERY PROGRAM.

or more than 30 years, the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program has brought water users, power interests, conservation groups, and state and federal agencies together to support the recovery of endangered fish species. In this interview, Hydro Leader talks with three of the program’s fish experts about the program’s activities, which range from installing fish ladders and monitoring instream flow to reducing habitat for nonnative predators.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER ENDANGERED FISH RECOVERY PROGRAM AND THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The fish trap at the Redlands Dam fish passage.

The critically endangered razorback sucker is one of the four species managed by the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.

was formed after many years of debate between water users— people who were actively removing water from the Colorado and Green River systems—and those who were protecting endangered species in the river. It was a no-win situation that led to the new idea that everyone’s objectives didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. The program’s partners developed the program and have continued to work together over the past 30 years. They currently include the States of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the Western Area Power Administration; water users, represented by several water organizations in the states where we are active; power users, represented by the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association; and environmental interests, represented by the Nature Conservancy and Western Resource Advocates.

throughout the basin. We also propagate and stock fish to try to reestablish their populations and then monitor them. I think we’ve been creative in how we manage the dams in our system so that they are not in themselves an impediment to endangered species recovery. For low-head dams, we have worked to construct fish ladders to allow passage. For large dams, it’s all about how the water is managed when releases from those facilities occur. For example, by releasing water from a dam right after nonnative bass have spawned and larval bass are in the river, thus increasing flows and lowering temperatures, we can essentially eliminate an entire year’s class of bass, which would otherwise eat our native fish. We can also use reservoir operations to help us manage other program elements, for example by using spring peak flows to flood offchannel wetlands that serve as nursery habitat for young fish.

Hydro Leader: What are the main aquatic species you are seeking to protect? Julie Stahli: The four species that we manage are the Colorado pikeminnow, the predator of the system and the largest minnow in North America; the razorback sucker, which is our only sucker species; the bonytail; and the humpback chub. Hydro Leader: Are your main concerns addressing how flow levels and dams affect fish? Julie Stahli: Flow levels and dam operations are definitely a piece of the puzzle, but we are looking at the system as a whole, including habitat and instream flow levels. We also manage nonnative fish, which have become our largest problem in the basin. Nonnative predators are widespread in the system and are negatively affecting native fish species. We carry out informational and educational efforts hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: Please tell us how Redlands Dam fits into your fish recovery operations. Dale Ryden: The Redlands Water and Power Company’s diversion dam is located in Grand Junction, about 3 miles up the Gunnison River from its confluence with the Colorado River. It’s a low-head dam that was completed in 1918. It spans the entire width of the river and is about the length of a football field. Although at 8½ feet it doesn’t sound very high, when you’re a fish, it’s certainly high enough to prevent upstream movement. The flows in the Gunnison can vary greatly, and lately, the high flows haven’t been very high, but at times, they can approach 20,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). The water passing over the dam forms an artificial plunge pool habitat immediately below the dam that can sustain nonnative predators, such as northern pike—species that can’t exist elsewhere in the lower Gunnison River during warm water months. In the early 1990s, our office did some studies in the Gunnison River, knowing that it had historically had May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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A Colorado pikeminnow in the fish trap at the Redlands Dam fish passage.

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it is pivotal for the fish species. The ROD flows allow us to successfully provide passage for endangered fish in the lower Gunnison River, even during very low water years. Hydro Leader: Was the fish ladder built on your organization’s budget, or did Redlands Water and Power contribute money to it? Dale Ryden: It was built using recovery program funding, which is contributed by our partners. That money is divided between two types of expenditures: base funding and capital projects funding. Capital projects funding is used to construct things like fish ladders and hatcheries. Redlands Water and Power, like a lot of the other low-head dam operators in the Grand Valley, has a recovery program scope of work that helps it perform maintenance and repairs on its dam and canal. We bill the same account to maintain and repair the fish ladders and to repair and replace equipment as necessary. Hydro Leader: Have you thought about putting an automated sorting system in the fish ladder? Dale Ryden: The funny thing with fish ladders is you never really know what you’re going to get. You might have 3 fish in the ladder one day and 2,500 fish the next. Also, during storm events, or daily during high-flow periods, a lot of what we do is just cleaning sticks and mud out of the fish ladder and raising and lowering gates to help clean out the fish trap. You have no idea what you need to do to keep the facility operating correctly unless you’re out there on a daily basis. Another problem is hybridization among fish species. We get a lot of hybrid sucker species that need to be handled individually to determine what species they are. It would be extremely difficult to automate these activities, which really require on-the-ground decisionmaking. There are other problems we deal with at this facility. We have a large homeless presence in the area, and people cut fences and even attempt to fish in the fish ladder when we’re not there. Also, a lot of weird things, such as mattresses and lawn chairs, get thrown into the river upstream of the fish ladder and must be cleaned off the upstream trash racks. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER ENDANGERED FISH RECOVERY PROGRAM.

populations of endangered fish, particularly Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker. We found very few Colorado pikeminnow and no razorback sucker. After endangered fish emerge from the egg stage, their larvae drift downstream, sometimes several hundred miles. These young fish can drift downstream over low-head dams. As they grow, mature, and move back upstream, they can’t get back up over these low-head dams by themselves. Also, our adult endangered fish are highly migratory and can move downstream over these dams during their migrations. In the 1990s, the recovery program wanted to install a fish ladder on the Redlands Water and Power Dam, but staff didn’t know how to engineer it because nothing like this had ever been done for native or endangered fish in western Colorado. They studied salmon ladders in the Pacific Northwest and used them as a model. When they put this fish ladder in, they had no idea whether it was going to work. The first year, one endangered Colorado pikeminnow went through, which was considered a big success. We normally run this fish ladder from mid-April through mid-October, the period during which our native and endangered fish are active in the river system and migrating to spawn. Now, in a normal year, about 13,000–17,000 native fish use this ladder. It’s a selective fish ladder, meaning that there’s a trap on the upstream end where we can handle and sort fish. The native and endangered fish are allowed to go upstream, while the nonnative fish are either put back downstream or removed, depending on the level of threat they represent to endangered fish species. Directly across the river from the Redlands fish ladder is the unscreened intake to the Redlands Water and Power Canal. A couple hundred yards down that canal is a fish screen that funnels fish back to the river through an underground fish return tube. We have a good partnership with Redlands Water and Power. It assists us with fish ladder maintenance issues. We also share flows that are delivered through the record of decision (ROD) for the Aspinall Unit dams. The ROD allows us to take 75 cfs to operate our fish ladder. When flows in the Gunnison River are low, that 75 cfs can be the only water in the Gunnison River for about a quarter of a mile, until the Redlands Water and Power Canal fish return tube returns its water to the river, so

ADVERTISEMENT Travis Francis: Many of the fish ladders in the Pacific Northwest that have automatic sorters deal with a few species that are already upstream of the dam or species that the operators want to get upstream of the dam, so they want to pass all those fish. In our situation, though, we have over 70 nonnative fish species, many of which aren’t found above Redlands Diversion Dam, so it’s important that we’re out there hand-sorting those fish. It would be difficult to have an automated program do that, because a lot of the species are similar in size and shape. In the 27 years that we’ve been operating the fish ladder, 211,233 fish have used it—171,000 native fish and just over 40,000 nonnative fish. We need to prevent the 19 percent that are nonnative from moving upstream. Hydro Leader: What other fish management activities do you conduct as part of the recovery program? Dale Ryden: We have another fish ladder at the Grand Valley Diversion Dam on the Colorado River just upstream of Grand Junction. Its design was based on the Redlands fish ladder and was completed in 2004. Although we corrected many of the mistakes we’d made when we built the Redlands fish ladder, we made a few new mistakes on that fish ladder because it was in a different section of the river and operated completely differently. There’s always a learning curve when you build a complicated structure like that. However, it is very successful in passing fish upstream. Downstream of that dam are two nonselective fish passage facilities that we help the water users run and maintain. We have a remote passive integrated transponder tag antenna at one of them, which provides a ton of data on which fish species are using it and which direction they are moving in. We do a lot of other fieldwork, including endangered fish population estimate studies and nonnative fish removal projects. We also have a fish hatchery in town, and every year, we stock endangered razorback sucker and bonytail in the river to boost populations. We also do fish community monitoring studies to understand how well endangered fish are surviving after stocking. Travis Francis: We have wetlands that we’ve tried to maintain water connection to in order to promote rearing areas for native fish species. There are several gravel pit ponds throughout our area that are problematic. We want them dammed off because of nonnative fish production. We’re installing water control devices to let water into other ponds and wetlands when there are larval fish in them; then, we drain the ponds and return the larger juveniles to the main system. Dale Ryden: In past years, one of the projects we’ve worked on is to perform fish salvage operations in irrigation canals. Once the canals are drained, we rescue native and endangered fish species and repatriate them to the river so they don’t die as the canals dry and freeze. During our biggest salvage year, hydroleadermagazine.com

we rescued something like 57,000 native fish from canals, including many endangered fish. Travis also mentioned working with Ecological Services, a branch of the USFWS. Our office frequently lends professional expertise to help it assess the effects of bridge abutment rebuilding projects or road projects that cross waterways on native and endangered fish species. The idea is to minimize the amount of habitat the use of materials such as riprap boulders might create for nonnative fish. Hydro Leader: What are the best ways to balance hydropower generation and fish safety? Dale Ryden: Our main concern is to try to prevent fish from being entrained in canals. To that end, our partners have been very good about installing, operating, and maintaining fish screens on their canal intakes. In cooperation with the recovery program, they’ve installed fish screens and made additions and upgrades to their canals to help them run their facilities more efficiently. It takes extra work to run the fish screens and prevent fish from getting into their canals and power plants, but it’s been a good partnership. Julie Stahli: What we’ve learned in working with our partners is that we can manage hydropower generation and endangered species conservation at the same time. Travis Francis: We are fortunate to be working in a program in which partners with different interests can sit down at a table and work together to benefit native species while accommodating the community’s hydropower and irrigation needs. Our work to help these endangered species recover also benefits the other native plants and animals that depend on the river. H Julie Stahli is the director of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. She can be contacted at julie_stahli@fws.gov.

Travis Francis is the deputy project leader at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Grand Junction Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. He can be contacted at travis_francis@fws.gov. Dale Ryden is the project leader at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Grand Junction Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. He can be contacted at dale_ryden@fws.gov.

May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Fish-Friendly Hydropower Production at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Pacific Northwest Facilities

The Army Corps is designing a fish collector for Detroit Dam, located on the North Santiam River near Detroit, Oregon.

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Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Tom Conning: I am the deputy chief of Portland District’s Public Affairs Office and lead the media relations team. I’ve been with the district for more than 5 years and serve as an advisor to multiple project delivery teams that deal with issues including fish passage at Willamette Valley dams, hatchery issues, and water management. Brad Eppard: I am a fish biologist and the chief of the fish passage section with the Portland District. I have been managing and carrying out research for 28 years, 17 of them with the Army Corps. Most of my work has concerned passage and survival in the lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers. Jim Calnon: I am the chief of the mechanical-structural branch of the HDC. I have 60 people working in different hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE IHA.

ith 75 power-producing dams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the largest generator of hydropower in the United States. Most of its largest hydroelectric dams are located on the Columbia, Snake, Willamette, and Rogue Rivers in the Pacific Northwest. These rivers are also home to important anadromous fish species, such as Chinook salmon and steelhead. In this interview, several professionals from the Army Corps’ Portland District and its Denver-based Hydroelectric Design Center (HDC) tell us more about the Army Corps’ efforts to make its hydropower generation activities more fish friendly, both in the Northwest and nationwide. We hear from Jim Calnon, the chief of the mechanical-structural branch of the HDC; Tom Conning, a public affairs specialist at the Portland District; Brad Eppard, a fish biologist at the Portland District; Rachel Laird, a fish biologist in the fish passage section at the Portland District; and Dan Patla, the chief of the turbomachinery section of the HDC.

The Army Corps is designing replacement turbines for 14 units at McNary Dam, located on the Columbia River near Umatilla, Oregon.

The Army Corps is designing a fish collector for Cougar Dam, located on the South Fork McKenzie River near Blue River, Oregon.

sections of my branch on turbomachinery, mechanical systems, structural design, and engineering. I’ve been with the HDC for almost 8 years; prior to that, I was a mechanical engineer with the Portland District for 16 years. Most matters related to turbine runners for improved fish passage are dealt with by my staff.

We have a lot of infrastructure in place in the lower Columbia that is being modified continuously to more efficiently move fish upstream and downstream past the dams, so we don’t have the same fish-passage problems. However, there are still things we do at the lower Columbia dams to spill certain amounts of water and to attract fish to the right areas so that they can move in a safer manner.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAM BEEBE, LICENSED UNDER CC BY-SA 3.0. AND BOB HEIMS, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Rachel Laird: I am a fish biologist in the fish passage section at the Portland District. My background is in population biology and population dynamics modeling. In the past, I’ve worked with salmon, sturgeon, Atlantic cod, gray seals, pilot whales, and bottlenose dolphins. Dan Patla: I’m the chief of the turbomachinery section of the HDC. I’ve been working for the Army Corps for 18 years. My team is directly involved with any kind of turbine replacement program, and we work on the designs for improved fish passage. Hydro Leader: Please introduce the fish passage and fish management efforts carried out by the Army Corps’ Portland District. Tom Conning: The main areas of the Portland District are the lower Columbia River, the Willamette River basin, and the Rogue River basin. The Rogue and Willamette have different challenges than the Columbia. In the Willamette and Rogue basins, we tend to have high-head dams whose reservoirs fluctuate a lot during the year. Because the reservoirs are drawn down in the winter for floodrisk-management purposes and refilled for conservation in the summer, their levels can fluctuate by 100 feet. We have pretty good fish passage upstream because we have adult fish collection facilities from which we truck the fish around the dams. The remaining challenges are in downstream passage, because those dams are blocking the fish. We are looking into building a floating fish collector and temperature-control structures. hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: Brad and Rachel, would you tell us about those existing passage structures and about any other structures or projects you are currently working to install? Brad Eppard: Focusing on adult salmon migrating upstream in the Columbia, we haven’t made a lot of structural changes over the years, because the existing ladders pass fish well. We do some operational things for adult salmon, most of which entail spilling water or operating turbines that are closer to the ladder entrances on the downstream side, which attract adult salmon and help them find the ladder entrance. Most of the work we’ve done over the years has focused on the juvenile side of the salmon life cycle, namely migration from their natal streams down to the ocean. Getting them past the dams safely has been an important focus of ours for a long time. One of the primary strategies we’ve adopted is what we call surface flow routes, which draw water from near the surface on the upstream side of the dam and pass water and fish over the dam via a structural component or a man-made waterfall. Salmon are surface-oriented fish, and they are more attracted to areas where they don’t have to dive deep to pass, so surface routes have been proven successful. All eight of our mainstem dams on the lower Columbia and Snake have surface flow routes. The other structural solution we have in place are screened bypass systems that guide fish entering the powerhouses of these dams into what we call juvenile bypass systems, which route them around the turbines. We have a metric that we call fish passage efficiency that is the proportion of fish that pass through nonturbine routes divided by the total number May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT of fish that pass the dam. The fish passage efficiency of most of our dams is in the 80–95 percent range. Bonneville has a fish passage efficiency in the 75–80 percent range, which is the lowest in the region. Over the years, especially the last few years, increasing levels of spill has been a primary strategy for increasing fish passage efficiency, and it has been successful. Most fish pass over the spillway at any given dam. Rachel Laird: We also use a weir that was previously used for downstream passage to skim warm water from the surface of Foster Reservoir and warm the fish ladder for adults. With respect to the collectors that are currently being designed, the one for Detroit Dam is the furthest along. Initially, when we embarked on the design process, there were many collectors installed in the region, but none at high-head dams. We learned that there had to be some modifications to use them at a highhead dam, and we adapted the Detroit design. The current collector design is integrated with the turbine, so it operates when the turbines are operating, making it more compatible with hydropower needs. It also fluctuates with lake elevation. We have adaptive plans in place for what to do when that collector might fall below operating range or when the flow isn’t constant. For example, we’ve talked about installing pumps to keep everything going during power peaking and about how to make turbine operations compatible with daily fish passage times to keep constant flow through the collector. We’ve also made some fish guidance design updates in recent years. The collector at Cougar Dam is also in the design phase; it is similar to the one at Detroit. The area where fish congregate at Cougar Dam is smaller, which has implications for the design of the floating screen structure. Hydro Leader: What factors improve fish passage through a turbine or other mechanical system, and how do you design systems with improved fish passage? Dan Patla: We’ve had some time to study different mortality mechanisms for fish in the turbine environment, and our new designs are focused on trying to eliminate those mechanisms. One mechanism is mechanical strike. We aim to minimize strikes from either stationary or rotating equipment, and we’re also looking at ways of eliminating gaps to prevent tension and shearing. Finally, we are trying to ensure that the pressure does not go below certain thresholds that would endanger the fish. We’ve also done draft-tube modifications to improve flow for indirect survival, trying to ensure that we’ve got the appropriate balance in different barrels and that fish can move through the turbine environment in a way that isn’t going to reduce their ability to react after they’re out of it. The Army Corps, the power-marketing agencies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a contractor cooperatively design turbines. First, we do numerous computer simulations using computational fluid dynamics. Then we take the design, make a scaled-down

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prototype, and test it in a high-head model test facility, which is usually contractor owned, to try to determine its operating characteristics, such as efficiency, cavitation performance, and runaway. We also take the design to the Waterway Experiments Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a model test facility that has observational models that allow us to see through the entire turbine environment. We’ll inject dye and neutrally buoyant beads into the water and observe the passage in a less quantitative, more qualitative manner, watching for mechanical strikes. After completing one iteration, we’ll make various tweaks to the design—maybe we’ll go from six blades to five blades—and do another iteration of testing. It’s a fairly long process, but we’ve completed the design of a few turbines that are now installed at Ice Harbor Dam. Jim Calnon: It turns out that at the same time that we make the turbines better for fish passage, we’re able to improve their efficiency with respect to power generation. We see efficiency gains in power generation of 1–3 percent. Since the HDC is a national center of expertise and we work on projects across the nation, we also are getting requests to incorporate dissolved oxygen improvements in other parts of the country. For example, we are looking at installing aerating runners at facilities in the South Atlantic Division to improve the dissolved oxygen levels in waterways and rivers to improve the survival of sport fisheries. Hydro Leader: An improved-fish-passage turbine has already been installed at Ice Harbor Dam. How many facilities does the Army Corps intend to replace turbines at in total? Dan Patla: At Ice Harbor, we’ve installed one turbine that has been tested for fish survival rates, and we have two others going in. At McNary Dam on the Columbia, we are designing replacement turbines for 14 units. As at Ice Harbor, we will install a variety of six-blade turbines and adjustableblade Kaplan turbines. We’re also designing plans and specs for 14 and potentially up to 16 turbines at John Day Dam. All of those will be designed for fish passage. To answer your question a little more broadly, the Army Corps intends to use this technology for all replacement turbines in areas with migratory fish. Whenever those turbines need to be replaced, we will look to incorporate these technologies and improvements. From a hydraulic turbine design standpoint, every dam is unique, so we can’t rapidly create one design that will be applicable in all situations. Generally speaking, all designs are unique. There are a certain number of units on the Lower Snake that are very similar to some on the Columbia, but that’s more an exception than a rule. Hydro Leader: What is public opinion regarding the fish friendliness of hydropower dams in the Pacific Northwest like? What are the Army Corps and other entities doing to publicize the work you’re doing? hydroleadermagazine.com

ADVERTISEMENT Tom Conning: Public opinion is split in many ways. There are advocates for hydropower, especially on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. There are also detractors. At the Portland District, we try to highlight the challenges and the balance we must strike at our varied dams. Fish passage efficiency at the lower three Columbia dams is pretty good, but we can make things better. We’ve done some tweaking at those dams to help Pacific lamprey navigate up and down the river. We can always do better in that sense. There are different challenges in the Willamette and Rogue basins. A lot of people who recreate on the reservoirs there don’t understand their operations and don’t want changes to water management to affect things such as reservoir level. The same goes for hydropower and fish passage. There are a lot of strong opinions regarding the dams and reservoirs in the Willamette Valley, and users don’t always care about the balance that we try to strike. Hydro Leader: What results have you seen from your activities, and what goals do you want to reach in the future? Brad Eppard: A biological opinion in 2014 established dam passage survival performance standards for each of our dams. We had to achieve a certain level of survival for juvenile Chinook salmon and steelhead passing our dams and prove, through research, that we were reaching those levels. We did extensive studies for about 5–6 years at all our dams, from Bonneville Dam to Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. Both the Portland and Walla Walla Districts were involved. We demonstrated that survival was around 95–96 percent for fish passing those dams. It’s been roughly 7–10 years since those studies were completed. Rachel Laird: I don’t think we know the exact minimum passage level we need for viable populations without knowing the fate of those fish. There are certain factors we cannot change, such as ocean conditions. At some projects, the passage metric has been a little lower than what we thought we needed in certain years, but there has been good population performance. We essentially must look at the fate of fish at almost every project. The generation time of salmon and steelhead is in the 4- to 5-year range, so we must pair up the juvenile downstream passage with what we get back, given that there are other factors that are outside the Army Corps’ control. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS.

Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future? Rachel Laird: That we continue to react adaptively, since the needs are changing almost daily. I like the path of learning from others in the region who have attempted different passage alternatives and of improving continuously. I appreciate that our designs are living documents that aren’t necessarily set in stone. I think that bodes well for Endangered Species Act requirements and responsibilities, so I’d like to see that continue. I would also like to see more information on those metrics within the context of the life cycle of salmon. hydroleadermagazine.com

Dan Patla: I would love it if we had a vision of a future in which hydropower is noticed and recognized as a green, renewable resource that is viable and extremely powerful. We are working to make it an even deeper shade of green, if you will, with our efforts to improve fish passage and downstream water quality in this region and other regions. Jim Calnon: We are trying to achieve multiple goals, including excellent fish passage, to make sure that we’re good stewards of the environment and our natural resources. Ideally, we will continue our work to develop improved-fishpassage runners so that they are the preferred passage route for juvenile fish passing downstream past a dam. The idea is to eventually get to the point at which the efficiency of a turbine in passing juvenile fish exceeds that of a spillway, a bypass system, or any other route. It’s also important that we mention in every stage of these discussions that hydropower is a carbon-free energy source that enables the integration of other renewables into our power system. Without hydropower, it would be difficult to integrate the solar and wind assets in this region into the grid. H Jim Calnon is the chief of the mechanical-structural branch of the Hydroelectric Design Center.

Tom Conning is a public affairs specialist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District.

Brad Eppard is a fish biologist at the Portland District.

Rachel Laird is a fish biologist in the fish passage section at the Portland District.

Dan Patla is the chief of the turbomachinery section of the HDC. For more information, please contact cewnp-pa@usace.army.mil.

May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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The Bureau of Reclamation’s David Raff: How the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funds Aquatic Restoration

Sunrise in reach 1 at the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program’s Laguna conservation area, near Yuma, Arizona.

he Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allocates $250 million to the Bureau of Reclamation to fund aquatic restoration projects. This summer, Reclamation will develop a funding opportunity for project selection. Hydro Leader spoke with David Raff, Reclamation’s chief engineer, about the Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program’s new funding flows.

David Raff: I started with Reclamation in 2003, working in the Technical Service Center, where I primarily focused on flood hydrology and risk associated with dams. I subsequently worked in the policy office on long-term water resources, sustainability, and climate change and on ensuring that water supplies and demands are in balance. Then I spent some time with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, working on hydrology and hydraulics, before returning to Reclamation in 2016 as the agency’s science advisor. In 2020, I became the chief engineer—a historic position that had been vacant for a couple of decades. I oversee a variety

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Hydro Leader: Please give us an overview of Reclamation’s aquatic ecosystem restoration work. David Raff: Reclamation has decades of experience working in aquatic restoration. Our programs over the past 20–30 years include the Trinity River Restoration Program, the Upper Colorado Recovery Implementation Program, the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Recovery Program, and the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, to name a few. All these programs have been focused largely on aquatic restoration. Many of our activities are designed to ensure that we are following our Endangered Species Act obligations and addressing other environmental concerns. They focus on restoring rivers, providing spawning habitat, providing habitat for hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO BY ALEXANDER STEPHENS, BURAU OF RECLAMATION, LICENSED UNDER CC BY-SA 2.0.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you came to be in your current position.

of directorates, including dam safety and infrastructure, research and development, data management, the Technical Service Center, our power resources office, and the water resources and planning office, where Reclamation houses its WaterSMART grant program.

ADVERTISEMENT bird species, and removing barriers to fish and aquatic systems. Since 2012, Reclamation has also supported aquatic ecosystem restoration planning led by local watershed groups through the WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management Program. Additionally, as a result of recent amendments to the SECURE Water Act, Reclamation can now provide cost-shared funding for on-the-ground ecosystem restoration projects led by nonfederal applicants under the Environmental Water Resources Projects funding opportunity. Hydro Leader: What kind of funding does the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provide to Reclamation for aquatic restoration work? David Raff: The Aquatic Restoration Restoration Program authority was enacted by Public Law 116‑260, section 1109, the Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Act. The actual authority was authorized in December 2020 as part of an omnibus appropriations law passed at the time. The authorization provided for up to $15 million in appropriations each year from 2023 through 2026, but it was not appropriated at that level. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted in 2021, provided $250 million for the authority provided in section 1109 of PL 116‑260. Hydro Leader: Would you introduce the new program?

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

David Raff: The Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program is focused on the design, planning, and construction of new restoration projects that improve aquatic habitat and fish passage and remove fish barriers. These individual projects have benefits across the entire watershed. As I mentioned, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized and appropriated $250 million for this program over a 5‑year period. However, in 2022, during the development of this program, we do not have an allocation for the restoration program, so that $250 million will actually be allocated over 4 years, beginning in 2023. This summer, we will be developing a funding opportunity for the consideration of project proposals. A notice of funding opportunity will go out in fall 2022, and we hope to begin awarding projects in early 2023. There will be an opportunity for comments on that funding opportunity, including the criteria for selecting projects. Hydro Leader: How can applicants present their work to best fit this program? David Raff: Projects will need to meet the criteria described in the notice of funding opportunity. Projects can be in the design or the construction stages and should be focused on things like improving habitat, reconnecting floodplains, improving fish passage, or removing culverts or other barriers. I’ll add that the new authority differs from our hydroleadermagazine.com

existing authorities in that the cost share is different. The federal government can provide up to 65 percent of private costs through financial assistance, though operation and maintenance costs are not eligible under the program. Hydro Leader: Will Reclamation also be hiring internally to step up this program? David Raff: We had an internal candidate who was interested in helping set up this program, Genevieve Johnson, who works in our Water Resources and Planning Office. She was the primary person responsible for standing it up. Reclamation does see a need and is hiring to implement the broad authorities of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, specifically for this program. You mentioned that this is a funding opportunity for outside entities. That’s correct. The statute states that this money is available to outside entities through financial assistance. Ms. Johnson can be contacted at gjohnson@usbr.gov. Hydro Leader: Is there anything else you would like to add? David Raff: I can’t really say a lot about the specifics until we develop the funding opportunity. We plan to fund a variety of projects and are hoping to get broad interest. It is a significant amount of money that we hope complements the historic programs that we’ve been working on for decades. Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the best way to balance hydropower generation and aquatic restoration in the future? David Raff: We have been putting a huge emphasis on hydropower as a renewable resource, one that provides ancillary benefits beyond those that have been promoted in the past. It can generate power on a cloudy or nonwindy day and can support the general electric grid through black start capability. Any hydropower activities must be balanced with our other mission obligations, including ensuring a sustainable ecosystem. We have been doing significant work to promote hydropower, and we recently signed a memorandum of understanding with a variety of entities, including our federal partners, to coordinate efforts in promoting hydropower. Your readers can learn more about the WaterSMART program or the Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program at usbr.gov/watersmart. H

David Raff is the chief engineer at the Bureau of Reclamation. He can be contacted at draff@usbr.gov.

May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Ice Harbor Dam, located on the Snake River near Burbank, Washington.

How Voith Hydro Designed Improved-FishPassage Turbines for Ice Harbor Dam

ver the past few years, Voith Hydro has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to design and install several turbines for improved fish passage at the Army Corps’ Ice Harbor Dam, located on the Snake River near Burbank, Washington. In this interview, we speak with Brian Van Baush and Jason Foust of Voith Hydro about what makes a turbine better for fish passage; what the Army Corps was looking for at Ice Harbor; and how Voith worked to design, test, and install the units at the dam. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Brian Van Baush: I work in Voith Hydro’s business development group and have been with Voith for just over 5 years. I’ve been involved with power generation for roughly 25 years. I went to the Naval Academy, and when I left the navy, I went to work in the paper industry; then moved over to General Electric’s industrial group, which supported hydro; and now work at Voith.

30 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022

Brian Van Baush: Voith Hydro has been in the power generation hydro business for 155 years, and through our acquired companies, Voith has been in North America for 145 years. We have grown over that time period through internal development and the acquisition of other hydropower equipment manufacturers, such as S. Morgan Smith and Allis Chalmers. We design and manufacture Kaplan, Francis, Pelton, and pump turbines. We are also deeply involved in small hydro projects, ranging from 1 to 15 megawatts. We have even developed the Streamdiver, which is a completely encased unit with a capacity of less than 1 megawatt that you can put into a canal. Hydro Leader: Would you introduce the concept of improved fish passage with reference to turbines? What are the factors that make a turbine better or worse for fish passage? Does this conversation primarily concern the passage through the turbine itself, or are we talking about other factors, such as dissolved oxygen? Brian Van Baush: Our improved-fish-passage turbine project was developed with the Army Corps over several years. Specifically, we are trying to ensure that fish can pass through the turbine without damage. Jason Foust: Fish passage is related to how a fish responds to a flow environment. This varies by species, so the main drivers are documented and studied by biologists, and we implement hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS BY THE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Jason Foust: I started at Voith 15 years ago. I work in hydraulic engineering in the contract execution phase for projects. Once a contract is awarded, I’m responsible for the definition of the hydraulic shapes for the runner and the various hydraulic components that are being modified or replaced. That involves a lot of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and model testing. In addition to those normal hydraulic engineering tasks, I’m also heavily involved with environmental technologies for aeration and fish passage.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce Voith Hydro and the range of turbines it manufactures.

design criteria for specific fish. For example, pressures within the turbine are important for both conventional turbines and those designed for improved fish passage. However, minimum pressure targets for fish generally differ from the design criterion we would use simply to ensure that the unit doesn’t cavitate. We don’t want the pressures to go so low that the gases in the fish’s body expand too much—kind of like what happens to a diver who comes up through the water too quickly and gets the bends. We also want to avoid rapid pressure changes. Another important design factor has to do with avoiding strikes against the physical structures. A blade striking a fish is another injury mechanism that can lead to mortality. Other factors include shear stress, overall flow quality, and providing uniform flow through the turbine so that the fish are not disoriented when they exit. If they are disoriented, they are easy prey for bigger fish and birds. Hydro Leader: How do you ensure safe passage for fish through the turbine? Are you altering the speed of the turbine, adjusting its shape, or adding sensors to it? Brian Van Baush: The main factor is the physical design of the turbine and its blades. Turbines turn at set speeds, so adjusting the speed is not a factor. Hydro Leader: Would you explain how Voith came to be involved with the Ice Harbor project and tell us about the requirements that the Army Corps had for that project? Brian Van Baush: We became involved with the Army Corps primarily because of our base here in North America and the engineering, design, and lab resources we have in York, Pennsylvania. We are the only supplier with a hydraulic turbine development lab in North America. Jason Foust: The process kicked off in 2010 and was quite long. We were looking at two types of machines for Ice hydroleadermagazine.com

Ice Harbor Dam personnel work to install Voith’s improved-fishpassage turbine runner.

Harbor. There are existing Kaplan turbines at the site whose blades can be adjusted depending on the inlet site conditions and operation goals. As part of the contract with Voith, the Army Corps replaced three of those existing Kaplans, one of which it replaced with a fixed-blade turbine. That being the case, development took place from 2010 to 2015 for two different hydraulic designs. There were quite a few iterations; May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT we were very thorough. Design decisions were made together within a small team that included members of the Army Corps, the Bonneville Power Authority, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These decisions were based on what worked best for fish passage. We learned a lot from that process, and I think another similar project in the future could be done faster based on what we learned. Hydro Leader: Did the Army Corps reach out to Voith specifically, or did you bid on the project? Jason Foust: There was a competitive bid. We were selected based on our technical solution and on normal factors such as schedule, costs, and experience. We’d had experience with previous fish passage technologies, such as the minimum gap runner and fish passage studies. Hydro Leader: What was the Army Corps looking for in particular for this project? Jason Foust: What made Ice Harbor special was that we weren’t just focusing on the flow environment within the runner. We looked at the entire flow passage, starting from the inlet. Analysis of the distributor showed that stay-vane modifications help to align these structures better with the wicket gates across the flow range, resulting in a more streamlined flow path for the fish. We also made changes to improve flow quality downstream of the runner. A lot happens within the runner, but for this project, we were considering the complete flow environment. Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the process of research, design, and manufacture that Voith went through?

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Brian Van Baush: Testing took place over several years. Part of it was done in the research facilities in York and Vicksburg, where we looked at the design and did model testing. Then we installed the unit into Ice Harbor and tracked fish as they went through and compared survival rates before and after the turbine went into place. Hydro Leader: What results has the Army Corps seen from the new turbine? What are the differences in fish survival numbers, and have there been any changes in power generation? Jason Foust: We saw an increase in efficiency that increased power generation by 3–4 percent. Live fish testing was conducted for the fixed-blade unit across the operating range with juvenile Chinook salmon. Direct survival through the operating turbine was documented to be 98.25 percent. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory also passed sensor fish devices, which measure pressure, acceleration, and other quantities within the flow field, through the turbine during operation. The sensor fish validated the fixed-blade design analysis that indicated that near-zero barotrauma mortality is expected for passage through the fixed-blade runner. The adjustable blade runner should be field tested for fish passage later in 2022, following the installation of the turbine. Hydro Leader: To what degree does this turbine provide a model for future improved-fish-passage installations? Brian Van Baush: All turbines are site specific, but the design of the turbine and the blades can play a role in the design of the next unit for other powerhouses in other areas. Jason Foust: I think what Ice Harbor demonstrated is that there is a process that allows you to provide the best of both worlds: good power and efficiency and excellent fish survival. There’s always been an interest in fish passage as an environmental concern. I think that is gaining momentum, and I hope that Ice Harbor is a case study that we can point back to. H Jason Foust is a principal hydraulic engineer at Voith Hydro. He can be contacted at jason.foust@voith.com.

Brian Van Baush is a business development manager at Voith Hydro. He can be contacted at brian.vanbaush@voith.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VOITH HYDRO.

Jason Foust: It was very detailed. We went through our CFD process, then did a physical model test in our laboratory in York. We did the normal tests for performance, cavitation, runaway speed, and pressure fluctuations and documented the hydraulic characteristics. After that, we took a step we don’t do for every project. The runner and modified hydraulic components were shipped down to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the Army Corps has its Engineer Research and Development Center. The staff there used the same scale model we used in York, installed our components, and then did fish passage testing. For each iteration, they did bead-strike analysis, velocity mapping, and other visual analyses of the flow characteristics within the turbine. It was important feedback that we incorporated into the next design iteration. What I think made this project a success was our collaboration with the entire design team. Everyone was involved through the entire design process, reviewing the CFD results, the performance results, and the fish passage visuals. Having this level of engagement from such a diverse team, especially the biologists, helped set the design criteria for the engineers.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the testing that was done on the turbine?

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Future Leaders of Waterpower (FLOW): A New Networking Group for Young Professionals pumped storage hydro, and marine energy technologies. We advocate for our members with Congress, and we also provide educational, networking, and other membership services. Hydro Leader: Would you give an overview of NHA’s professional development and training programs? Marycella Dumlao: We just launched a new career center (careers.hydro.org). It is user friendly for both job seekers and employers, and job seekers can post a résumé for free. There are also other resources there, such as résumé-writing resources and interview coaching. Employers can post internship listings for free. They pay a fee to post job listings, but doing so gives them access to a searchable database of résumés.

A FLOW meet-and-greet at the NHA Booth at Clean Currents 2021, attended by FLOW members, members of the NHA board of directors, and other waterpower industry leaders.

he National Hydropower Association (NHA) started Future Leaders of Waterpower (FLOW) to attract and support diverse young professionals in the industry. From monthly calls to happy hours at conferences, the group hosts activities that provide a welcoming environment and a clear pathway for professional growth. In this interview, NHA’s FLOW leader Marycella Dumlao talks with Hydro Leader about how the group helps boost retention, transmits industry knowledge to the next generation of leaders, and gives young professionals a chance to make their voices heard. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Marycella Dumlao: My background is in international development. I have bachelor’s degrees in both economics and music. I started my career at a consulting firm, doing management consulting for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. Before I joined NHA in 2019, I worked at Maritz Global Events, a large event-management firm, where I planned everything from conferences as small as 30 people to trade shows with over 130,000 attendees.

Marycella Dumlao: NHA represents over 260 organizations in the waterpower industry across conventional hydro,

34 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022

Marycella Dumlao: We launched FLOW to address two problems within the industry: a lack of diversity (our industry is 70 percent white and 70 percent male) and the need to replace and retain workers as we face an oncoming large wave of retirement. FLOW seeks to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and give emerging leaders in the industry clear pathways for professional growth. One of the great things about the waterpower industry is that it is so close and tight knit; the people in it have known each other for decades. But for a newcomer, it is incredibly intimidating when you walk into a room where everybody knows each other. Although everyone in the industry is welcoming, you don’t always know that during your first event. With that in mind, we are helping to build a community by introducing members of FLOW to existing industry leaders in the hope that they start building those connections and those bridges and in the hope that they stay in the industry. There’s so much going on in waterpower, and there’s so much investment flowing into the industry, that it is vital for us to attract and retain the best talent. Hydro Leader: Is FLOW aimed primarily at young professionals who are already in the industry, or is it also aimed at college students who are considering careers in hydropower? Marycella Dumlao: When I was building this program, I wanted to make sure that it would be open to NHA members and nonmembers alike. That way, it’s accessible to students. We have had a few undergrads and graduate hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NHA.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce NHA.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about FLOW. What problem was NHA trying to solve by launching this new group for young professionals?

ADVERTISEMENT students reach out to be part of FLOW. Our monthly virtual calls are open to everyone. I try to get a range of speakers to share their knowledge of the industry. On a recent call, Cameron Schilling, NHA’s vice president of market strategies and regulatory affairs, gave a talk on Markets 101. I also try to get at least one speaker to cover soft skills like how to do a cold approach at a conference or how to advocate for yourself in a room.

Company both spoke at Clean Currents. They are amazing women of color in different stages of their careers. Being part of FLOW really does give folks opportunities for exposure across the board.

Hydro Leader: Are there any other limits on eligibility?

Marycella Dumlao: They can go to our website: hydro.org/FLOW. Or they can e-mail me, and I can get them on our e-mail list. We have a call on the third Thursday of every month at 3:00 p.m. eastern. And like I said, we have a presence at our two national NHA-organized events: Clean Currents and Waterpower Week in Washington. I’m happy to work with people who want to be part of FLOW and to support them in whatever they want to do, whether it’s a research paper, submitting an article, or speaking at an event. I’m happy to coach them through it, and I know other folks in the industry who are happy to help them on their career paths.

Marycella Dumlao: FLOW is for young professionals under the age of 40 and with up to 15 years' experience in the waterpower industry. We are aimed at young professionals, but since the industry is skewed on the older side, we set that cutoff at 40. We welcome women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Hydro Leader: Please tell us more about the activities you host through FLOW and the opportunities that are open to participants. Marycella Dumlao: We host social events at all our conferences. At the annual Clean Currents tradeshow and conference, we’ll have a networking social as well as a few meet-andgreets where we show content that is aimed at the FLOW demographic. We had a FLOW networking happy hour at Clean Currents 2021 that was wildly successful and a small, private dinner afterward. FLOW hosted a Taco Tuesday– themed social at Waterpower Week in April 2022. We hold the monthly calls that I mentioned to continue building community and sharing industry knowledge. I also hope to have a few virtual and in-person workshops throughout the year on topics chosen by FLOW group members. I help NHA plan meetings, so I have some sway in terms of finding FLOW folks to participate and be on the agenda. I also have been able to get FLOW folks on the steering committees that choose content and build programs for our events. I have connected FLOW members with industry leaders whom they want to speak to. FLOW is not a formal mentorship program, because so many great mentorship programs already exist, but I think that many informal mentorship relationships will form through FLOW. Since our monthly calls involve small groups of around 30–40 people, participants often get face time with the speakers, many of whom are industry leaders. We try to provide opportunities for our members to speak or moderate at our conferences or to join steering committees. Several members have written articles for NHA’s POWERHOUSE media platform. We want to provide them with the exposure and the experience they need to strategically situate themselves when it’s time for promotion. We also want to bring more diversity to our panels. Nuria Holmes, the vice chair of FLOW, and Renee Fernandez‑Lipp from Pacific Gas and Electric hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: If any of our readers are interested in joining FLOW, what should they do to learn more and to get involved?

Hydro Leader: Is there anything you would like to add? Marycella Dumlao: It’s an exciting time to be part of FLOW. Elliott Jackson of HDR and Nuria Holmes of SWCA are part of the leadership committee, and they are doing a great job of rolling the program out and guiding the group’s activities. We are still looking for a third leadership person—a social chair—who we hope will come from the utility side of the industry. If someone is interested in that, they can let me know. Our leadership team gets really involved with the industry, so obviously they get a lot of recognition and exposure. Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future of the program? Marycella Dumlao: Right now, our biggest goal is to grow the network of young professionals. What I envision is a program that caters to its members and has a very active membership. Right now, our members are a little shy, but I want them to say, “Hey, I want to learn about this,” or “Hey, I want to speak on our next FLOW call about XYZ,” or “One of my goals is to speak at an energy conference.” At the end of the day, I want them to feel empowered to advocate for themselves and advance in their careers so they can become the next generation of waterpower leaders. H

Marycella Dumlao is a meeting planner and program coordinator at the National Hydropower Association. She can be contacted at marycella@hydro.org or (202) 750‑8410. May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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BY THE NUMBERS NORTHWEST HYDROELECTRIC ASSOCIATION 130 members 6 states and Western Canada represented 9 committees working to advance education and outreach for hydropower Founded in 1981 80% of hydropower in the U.S. is produced in the Northwest 1 voice for hydropower in the Northwest

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MULTIPLE HYDROPOWER SECTOR OPPORTUNITIESSalary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Throughout the United States Deadline: Until filled Summary: The NHA is a nonprofit national association dedicated exclusively to preserving and expanding clean, renewable, affordable hydropower and marine energy. As part of its mission, the association maintains a career page featuring opportunities that are available among its members as well as throughout the hydropower sector. Apply: https://careers.hydro.org/jobs/

SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Horsham, PA Deadline: Until filled Summary: Will support our local and regional teams with a mix of environmental and civil engineering design. The applicant will have 7+ years of experience working on environmental projects, including remedial investigations, feasibility studies, remedial designs, and implementation of remedial action. Apply: https://www.anchorqea.com/ careers/careers-open-positions/

UNITED STATES SOCIETY ON DAMS Title: Multiple dam and levee industry opportunities Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Throughout the United States Application Deadline: Until filled Summary: The USSD envisions a world in which all dams and levees are safe and valued by the communities they serve, and the organization embraces a mission of empowering professionals to advance sustainable benefits of dams and levees for society. In the furtherance of these objectives, multiple positions within this industry sector are posted on the USSD’s website. Apply: https://www.ussdams.org/ resource-center/job-postings/

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TECHNICAL SALES AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Remote/Hybrid Deadline: Open until filled Summary: Presenting our product and our values accurately and enthusiastically while maintaining existing lines of business and effectively building new relationships. Apply: https://nustreem.com/careers/

TALENT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Vancouver, WA Deadline: Until filled Summary: The talent development manager will create and maintain the training and development process, programs, and practices needed to attract and retain employees at Northwest Pipe Company. This position will interact with a variety of stakeholders including the corporate executive team, plant management, and members of the HR team in order to accomplish the tasks assigned. Apply: http://www.nwpipe.com/careers

TECHNICAL MARKETING MANAGER Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Orem, UT or Salt Lake City, UT Deadline: Until Filled Summary: Responsible for developing, maintaining, and improving relationships with the engineering and specification community in all viable markets; creating marketing plans and coordinating with the sales team. Apply: http://www.nwpipe.com/careers

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MANAGER Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Vancouver, WA Deadline: Until filled Summary: The Corporate Social Responsibility Manager will help drive the Company’s Social and Governance visions and will partner with other leaders in the organization as we seek to clarify our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy, measure output, and report results externally. Apply: http://www.nwpipe.com/careers May 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Hydro Leader May 2022

Articles inside

JOB LISTINGS

A Partnership for Endangered Fish on the Colorado River

Future Leaders of Waterpower (FLOW): A New Networking Group for Young Professionals

How Voith Hydro Designed Improved-Fish-Passage Turbines for Ice Harbor Dam

Fish-Friendly Strategies

Fish-Friendly Hydropower Production at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Pacific Northwest Facilities

Jim Chandler on Idaho Power’s Plans to Improve Fisheries and Water Quality in the Snake River

How the Relicensing of a Hydro Project Led to Improvements for Salmon on Washington State’s Sultan River

The Bureau of Reclamation’s