JANUARY 2021

INTRODUCING HYDROPASSAGE'S BRETT PFLUGRATH

For the past 14 years, Brett Pflugrath has been studying how hydropower affects fish as they travel downstream.

He started as a postgraduate research associate who examined how rapid decompression affects Chinook salmon. Since then, Pflugrath has evaluated how rapid decompression and fluid shear influence North American fish, Mekong River species in Laos, and several Australian species during his PhD work at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Pflugrath brings this expertise to the HydroPASSAGE project, where he leads the development of biological response models. The models are developed to predict the response of several fish species to stressors encountered during passage through hydropower turbines and other infrastructure including weirs, screens, and bypass facilities. Pflugrath, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), has led several biological response projects related to stressors like rapid decompression and fluid shear. He also has coordinated with researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on examinations of blade strike.

In his own research, Pflugrath has utilized HydroPASSAGE’s Biological Performance Assessment (BioPA) Toolset, Hydropower Biological Evaluation Toolset (HBET), and Sensor Fish to evaluate the effects of downstream passage on fish.

“Because of projects like HydroPASSAGE and its associated tools, new turbine designs are being installed that are significantly reducing the adverse effects to fish passing through the turbines,” Pflugrath said. “The newer designs are better for fish and the turbines are more efficient than the older, existing turbines.”

STUDY FINDS SURROGACY POTENTIAL FOR SALMONID SPECIES

The HydroPASSAGE team recently studied three different species of Pacific salmonids to determine if surrogate species can be applied to rapid decompression testing. The researchers evaluated and compared how juvenile kokanee, rainbow trout, and Chinook salmon respond to rapid decompression in laboratory experiments by simulating downstream passage conditions through hydropower turbines.

The research, published in Ecological Indicators, demonstrated that the number of species that must be studied related to rapid decompression can be greatly reduced and in cases where a fish is rare or endangered, closely related species can be used to determine susceptibility to rapid decompression. The researchers used BioPA to incorporate dose-response relationships for rapid decompression and to determine the probability of adverse passage. The three species studied had similar BioPA scores for adverse passage probabilities, which indicates they could serve as surrogates for one another under certain passage conditions.

Click here for more information on the study.

A LOOK AT PNNL'S AQUATIC RESEARCH LABORATORY

The HydroPASSAGE technical team conducts its research at PNNL’s Aquatic Research Laboratory (ARL) in Richland, Washington.

At ARL, scientists utilize the availability of Columbia River water in the 7,400-square-foot facility to explore sustainable hydropower through research and assessment of operational impacts. ARL has specialized research equipment that simulates conditions at water development projects to study fish passage, including hyperbaric and hypobaric chambers, shear and turbulence tanks, and fish respirometers.

Take a virtual 360-degree tour of ARL here.

Learn more about ARL in this video here.

The HydroPASSAGE project is a research and development collaboration between engineers and biologists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest and Oak Ridge National Laboratories that is finding solutions to improve downstream fish passage conditions through turbines and other hydropower structures. Learn more at hydropassage.org.