Last fall, members of the Deerfield Chapter of Trout Unlimited began a study of the Deerfield River because they were pretty sure that it had a sustaining population of wild brown trout. They wanted to find out for sure because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is in the process of re-licensing the Bear Swamp hydro-electric facilities which includes the Bear Swamp pump storage. The river system starts above Somerset Reservoir, then Harriman and then Sherman reservoirs to Bear Swamp and then to Fife Brook dam.
Water is pumped up to Bear Swamp Pond and then it is released to the turbines to generate electricity. That doesn’t impact water flows below Fife Brook Dam, but what does impact flows is amount of water which is coming from up above and then what is done with this water in the pump storage facility. How much can they manipulate the water to minimize the impact that is going on with the 17 miles down below? That’s what the FERC relicensing is addressing.
The Deerfield River Watershed is complicated, encompassing 73 miles of water with 10 dams. There are two different license holders involved, Great River who owns the operations above Fife Dam, and Brookfield who owns operations below Fife Brook Dam. The Deerfield River Chapter of TU is dealing primarily with Brookfield for FERC Relicensing. Brookfield receives its water from up above (Great River). The FERC relicensing study area is the 17 miles downstream from Fife Brook Dam down to Dam #4 in Buckland.
Every day there is a hydro event. The mandated minimum flow is 125cfs (cubic feet per second) and on a daily basis it pumps up to 800, 900 or 1000 cfs. During the winter months they run a lot of water (hydropeaking) which is considered bad for the environment and has a significant effect on fish. (There is no disagreement about that unless you are into white water sports).
Initially, the Deerfield River TU Chapter requested a trout spawning study. FERC denied it twice on the basis that there was no proof of adverse effect on the ecology on fish below the Fife dam. Brookfield maintained that this is a put-and-take fishery and that is what MassWildlife values. Fish are put it, taken out or are caught and released. They said that it is a vibrant trout area, so, what’s the problem?
Brookfield was also questioning why they should pay for this study when nothing that they were doing was harming the fish. It is not what Brookfield is doing at Fife Brook dam, they say, it’s what is happening up above that is having the significant impact. Blame it on Great River whose license comes up in 20 years for renewal. Consequently, the study became stalled.
Deerfield TU couldn’t answer the question of what the problem was and how it was impacting the fish. MassWildlife did not believe there was significant spawning in the Deerfield River and believed that any kind of spawning took place in the tributaries and not the mainstem. Well, the TU study proved otherwise.
A Deerfield TU board member read about what was going on at the Henry’s Fork River in Idaho dealing with the significant problems there because of winter flows. Brown trout spawn there in the fall, too. So, he brought information to his TU chapter and asked what they thought about that spawning study. They decided that they were going to go ahead with a similar study and pay for the $2,000 cost themselves.
They raised money on their own, approached the Mass/RI Council of TU as well as other TU chapters for financial assistance. (I’m proud that our local Taconic Chapter kicked in some money). Thomas & Thomas Fly Rod Company contributed $2,000. They hired Dr. Michael Cole, an aquatic scientist to lead the effort.
They didn’t know how much spawning was going on, but if they could prove what the power companies were doing was detrimental to spawning trout and quantify it, it would be a game changer. They had to partner up with USFWS, MassWildlife and the Connecticut Water Conservancy recognizing that they weren’t going to be able to deal with it alone.
About a dozen chapter members went out in late October looking for redds. (spawning nests made by trout). In one particular area, there were 40 redds! Each time they identified a redd, they measured its length, depth, sub-straight, the size of the rocks, GPS settings and marked it with a red flag. Once they found the egg locations, they went back and took samples in low waters. Due to water fluctuations, some of the redds were out of water.
They found 12 of the redds and 8 of them contained eggs. That indicated that there was a significant amount of spawning activity that was going on in shallow water. What the fish appeared to be doing was moving into these areas during high water to do their spawning and when the waters came down they abandoned them. They choose these spots, not because of sub-straight as believed, but also due to some upwelling of the water (40 redds were in one area). Many of the tail spills were completely out of water.
In the 7 ½ mile stretch of the river, volunteers found 101 redds, with 35 of them having eggs. (they only covered about 60-70% of the water so there could be other areas with redds). They took 35 samples of eggs and had DNA tests done, thanks to financing from Thomas & Thomas. All of them were brown trout eggs except for two which were rainbows.
Volunteers went out on a cold March day and found that some of those flags had moved and redds were lost. In one redd they found 80 eggs and 70% of them were alive, and they found eggs in various stages. They are now going to FERC with scientific evidence, and they need to know how much velocity is needed to cover these redds.
The Chapter proved what they wanted to prove and now agencies such as MassWildlife, USFWS, UMASS and others will take it from there. USFWS was “blown away” with the results. MassWildlife, which was originally of the opinion that this spawning was not going on, has gone back to FERC and there will be more extensive sampling by them.
They will be looking for more water releases during the winter months. In the summer months they have to have a certain amount of water to make mandated releases (for the rafters), but during the winter they have no need for them – but the trout do.
The Deerfield TU chapter definitely showed that hydropeaking has an adverse impact on trout. Their goal was to get the State and Federal resources to further study the Deerfield and its tributaries. They want to enhance the wild trout population, work with the state agencies for better management practices, and improve the wild trout population. They would like to see the Deerfield River develop its own surviving strains for stocking, rather than imports, and answer the question. “Can a substantial wild trout population exist exclusively in the upper stretches of the Deerfield River? Right now, they don’t know.
There will be updated information on this subject in next week’s column.