MARCH 2021

ALISON COLOTELO LEADS HYDROPASSAGE PROJECT

Alison Colotelo has been researching the interactions between fish and hydropower for more than a decade. 

As a senior research scientist and project manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Alison has led laboratory-based studies that examine the relationships between the physical forces that fish may experience during passage through hydropower turbines (including rapid decompression and fluid shear) and the biological responses. 

This research has led to her role as the project lead of the HydroPASSAGE project, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office. HydroPASSAGE is focused on finding solutions to improving downstream fish passage conditions through turbines and hydropower structures. In her position, Alison coordinates the research activities executed by the HydroPASSAGE team, assesses fish responses to rapid decompression and fluid shear stressors, and engages with the hydropower industry. 

Alison and the HydroPASSAGE team are working to make the project’s tools available to stakeholders. These tools include the Biological Performance Assessment (BioPA) toolset and the Hydropower Biological Evaluation Toolset, which are used to better understand the potential for injury and mortality that may occur during fish passage at hydropower facilities. 

“This year we are striving to increase our engagement with stakeholders of the hydropower community,” Alison explains. “We are offering free trial versions of the tools plus time with our technical experts to allow interested stakeholders to have hands-on experience with the features. We’re also hoping that conversations about industry challenges around fish passage can help to prioritize what research and development is needed next.” 

Learn more about Alison here.

HYDROPASSAGE PUBLISHES BIOLOGICAL RESPONSE MODELS REPORT

A team of HydroPASSAGE biologists and engineers have developed and collected 99 biological response models related to 31 species of fish to integrate into the project’s toolsets. A report on their findings was recently published on behalf of DOE. 

The team used specialized equipment to develop biological response models for exposure to blade strike, rapid decompression, and fluid shear to determine what fish experience as they travel downstream through turbines and other hydropower structures. The models include American shad, Chinook salmon, and American eel, which have various predicted outcomes like injury or mortality. 

The biological response models provide information that is critical to the design and operation of hydropower that promotes safe fish passage by predicting the likelihood that a fish will respond in a particular way to a stressor. 

These models can and have been applied in several different cases, often using HBET and BioPA to evaluate fish passage through hydropower facilities, including specific applications such as turbine replacement, installation of new turbines, or changing operations of currently installed turbines. 

As hydropower is continually developed to meet the needs of the electric grid, tools such as HBET and BioPA used with integrated biological response models will help develop technologies and strategies to avoid, minimize, mitigate, and manage environmental effects. 

Learn more here. 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION ABOUT BIOLOGICAL RESPONSE

How does HydroPASSAGE collect information about fish susceptibility to turbine stressors? 

Biological response relationships are obtained from laboratory experiments that connect in-turbine physical stressors to impacts on fish. The HydroPASSAGE project has prioritized studies for species of conservation concern that are known to be affected by turbine passage. The HydroPASSAGE project has focused on investigating the biological response relationships for common stressors that fish experience in the hydropower turbine environment, including rapid decompression, rapid changes in water velocity (shear), and being struck by turbine blades. Biological response relationships available in the peer-reviewed literature have also been cataloged. Both HBET and BioPA use biological response data to evaluate and predict the impacts of hydropower turbines on fish. 

Read more HydroPASSAGE FAQs here.

Have a question about HydroPASSAGE? Email the team 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.