Warmwater Streams Committee
Southern Division, American Fisheries Society
Roundtable Discussion - February 26, 2004
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Dennis Riecke - Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks - Have been stocking largemouth bass in coastal rivers for several years. Research projects at Miss. State Univ. include paddlefish spawning and habitat use in Tenn-Tom Waterway; genetics and population assessment of native strain of walleye in NE Miss. Gear comparison and length & age at maturity of channel catfish in 12 streams statewide was completed. Scenic streams program growing slowly with legislation enacted for tax credits for voluntary conservation easements. Trying to develop a new instream flow standard for the Delta Region.

David Sager - Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept (TPWD) - Working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on setting water quality standards. Doing ecoregion studies for IBI’s. Formulated IBI’s for regions and this will go in procedures manual for TCEQ. Rigid statistical analysis done. TPWD is reorganizing. Resource Protection Division is being moved into other divisions, ---- inland fisheries. Trying to begin a statewide fish contaminants sampling and monitoring program for 3 years. TPWD lab will do fish tissue analysis, Texas Dept. of Health and TCEQ are involved. Having a much wider problem with toxic golden algae. It is spreading into other rivers and the headwaters of Lake Texoma. Species is an estuarine problem worldwide. Species overcomes other algae, blooms, mixotrophic algae that consumes other algae. Waters with increased salinity and alkaline situations have toxic golden algae. West of I-35 ---- fish kill and toxic events.
Legislature provided 1.2 million for funding for 2 years. Held symposium and developed research and management plans. Go to: www.tpwd.state.tx.us Click on “harmful algae blooms”.

Leigh McDougal - US Forest Service - trying to improve fish passage at road crossings. Where do the problems exist? Most of work information is on salmonids.

David Anderson (for Henry Mealing) - Kleinschmidt & Assoc. - doing watershed management plans for the Alabama River.

Scott Smith -Virginia Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries - Smallmouth Bass Population Estimates and Long Term Monitoring Project is continuing. We will radio tag some fish and then do multiple bypass depletions. We want to know where these fish go to determine what happens to fish we are not catching and what proportion we are missing. Proposal to do genetics work on smallmouth bass. Upper Tennessee fish could be native, if so, are they unique? What are the genetics of introduced stocks? Supplemental stocking of smallmouth bass on 3 rivers starts this summer to improve year-class strength, OTC marking, Try using calcein – 1st year make detection on whole fish under specific light, spines and rays used for fish older than 1 year.

Mercury study in Shenandoah River — fish consumption advisory, examining fish sizes and species to publish no consumption rules. Determining how much of other sizes a person can safely eat.

Introduced blue catfish populations are expanding in the Chesapeake Bay Rivers. Sampling them with low frequency which is good for abundance but poor for length-frequency, use high frequency for a better length frequency. Blue catfish are pretty significant mussel predators. Embrey Dam will be Monday on the Rappohannnock River. It’s removal will restore access to 70 miles of river.

Frank Fiss - Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency - Within the Tennessee-Cumberland drainage there is no significant variation in smallmouth bass genetics. Smallmouth bass management plan is 1 year old and needs to be implemented. Creel Survey done, should be on agency website by summer. Hired 8 people to work on nongame species.

Dave Evans - Arkansas Game and Fish Commission - Dave is regional streams team coordinator, there are 4 in the state and each has about 20 counties. Dave works on stream bank rehab work with schools and watershed groups and most projects are still intact and functioning as planned. Arkansas has a tax credit to encourage stream bank restoration. Direct tax reduction up to $50,0000 over a 10 year period. Trying to assess stream bank erosion statewide to rank the extent of it, based on length, height, riparian zone and soil type. Beginning to have interest in urban stream bank restoration. Grant funds available, working with cities, COE and universities. State Stream Team Conference every 2 years for presentations and to provide new information. More watershed groups are forming and we are providing technical advice. Fisheries is rehabilitating trout hatcheries. Building 4-5 nature centers — accelerated that program and construction is close to completion.

Arkansas Watershed Advisory Group formed a few years ago as a state-federal clearinghouse of information. Published a 3 ring binder book and has a website: http://www.awag.org/

Bill Layer (private consultant in Arkansas) - has projects that resulted in the planting of 1.5 million hardwood trees, cleaned up 140 tons of trash. Used 319 funds in each county to accelerate conservation tillage. Fish sampling at 13 sites since 1992, documented 113 species in Bayou Bartholomey.

Randy Hyler -Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation - Trying to get minimum flow in the Lower Illinois River (talking to legislature). COE wants to dredge entire Arkansas River Navigation System, to have a 9' to 12' channel. Unrealistic time frame for Draft EIS. Examining their stream habitat improvement projects and bank stabilization projects.

Paul Balkenbush - Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation - Assessing the impacts of low water crossings on stream geomorphology and fish movement. Evaluating the effects of 2 length limits on smallmouth bass on 2 streams. Assessing the genetic introgression of Tennessee smallmouth bass into native smallmouth bass stocks in Oklahoma reservoirs. Oklahoma
Streams Information System— trying to determine how to use it and integrate information — a GIS system. Trying to coordinate different agency stream activities, want to meet with everyone to discuss projects to avoid duplicating studies.

Ellen Tejan - The Nature Conservancy (TNC) - TNC reorganized under new president. Moving from preservation to landscape level. Thinking more about how they can use preserves to help other manage their own lands, doing demonstration projects. Guiding Document is Conservation by Design and it outlines 4 steps about how the TNC operates:

Determine problems at the ecoregion
1. find areas with most biodiversity
2. figure out where to work
3. then do conservation plan
4. work with all parties to do the work

So, we do lots of planning, use Aquatic Habitat Macro invertebrate Classification (GIS), use coarse level databases (EPA), Identify key streams to protect (best ones) and ask for cooperator input on these streams.

Sand Creek in Oklahoma Flint Hills is one of the last unimpounded streams in the region. City of Barrlesville wants to dam the creek for water and recreation.

COE 206 project on headwater streams restoration.

Freshwater Initiative may disappear in a few years, we are trying to publicize ecologically sustainable water management plans. Manuscript is available on — www.nature.org — click on Freshwater Initiative.

Chris O’Bara - West Virginia Dept. of Natural Resources - We will probably have statewide consumption advisories for mercury in the near future. Smallmouth bass assessment project on 3 rivers — movement studies indicated they don’t move much. Muskie project — age and growth and movement is in 2nd year. Some muskies move great distances, important when considering catch and release sections. Species restoration — doing paddlefish work for several years, stocking 10,000 large paddlefish and it is pretty common to sample them now.

Other projects: Shovelnose sturgeon, Blue Catfish and Blue Sucker on the Kenaw River
Walleye restoration on the New River ---- genetics study
Walleye restoration on the Upper Ohio River ---- a unique haplotype
Monogahela River ---- 5 year assessment
Striped bass movement study
Active on Navigation Impact Studies
Percid study completed on the New River and Ohio River resulted in stocking moratorium for walleye except for Ohio River broodstock. Up to 60% natural mortality on sauger, 10% fishing mortality. Why? Cold water and velocity blocks.

Fish passage studies indicate that sauger don’t move much downstream, under flooding conditions they move upstream. Multi sampling approach for sampling the Ohio River this summer. South branch of the Potomac River had a chronic fish kill ---- bacteria caused the kill along with a combination of parasite problems and intersex smallmouth bass males — up to 80% had eggs in testes — all could be related. Lots of estrogen sources.

Ed Scott - Tennessee Valley Authority - TVA Reservoir Operations Study had plenty public input. Public wants lakes high until Labor Day. This will change temperature regimes in tailwaters and we will have to monitor the effect on snail darters. USFWS, Cookeville office wants all snail darter populations reinvestigated to see if they can delist the species. Jim Lazer in Cookeville will head up the study.

Holston and French Broad Rivers — restoring lake sturgeon, 5 years into a 20 year stocking project. Fish were from eggs obtained from Wisconsin broodstock. Problem finding fish for 5 years after stocking. Recaptured < 20 out of 21,000 fish. Anglers caught 30 and 15-20 were caught in the Little Pigeon River below a mill dam. Massive sampling effort in November with public events so people can learn to recognize sturgeon. There is a page devoted to sturgeon in this years fishing regulation booklet. TVA is reorganizing again to reduce costs and offering retirement incentive packages. Project with the National Park Service in their rivers along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

James Vincent - Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation - James thinks that fluvial geomorphology is moving from West to East and it will be a hot topic. Water shapes landscapes. We need a subcommittee or ad hoc committee to address and publicize this issue into other disciplines and be a clearinghouse for Applied Fluvial Geomorphology (AFG). It would be a good topic for a joint meeting with the SDAFS Instream Flow Committee.

Adjourned at 4:45 p.m.