20100904 Ver 1_More Info Received_20110412

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Mcmillan, Ian
From: McRacken Jr., James [[e-mail]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 4:07 PM
To: Mcmillan, Ian; Goudreau, Chris J.
Cc: Barwick, Hugh; McKinney, Matt
Subject: Linville Outage Week 2
Attachments: Bridgewater Fish Relocation Results 4_11_11.xls; FIG 1_LinvilleESSI_Tidbit-DO_Locations_
041111.pdf
Here the responses to Chris'questions and comments from the 4/6/2011 email. In addition, this email also contains the
second week data and a map of the temperature and Do monitoring locations.
Question 1. Why weren't most of the minnows, darters and suckers identified? Any additional information on those would
be helpful. Were any fish preserved? I know we didn't ask you to do this, but wondering if it was done to assist with
identification.
Answer 1. Due to rapidly decreasing daylight the first night when we were working up fish, those species most readily
identifiable were recorded while those that were not were lumped into family groups. As we were sorting fish however, I
did make mental notes that most of the darters were Fantail Darter(Etheostoma flabellare), with tesselated darter
(Etheostoma olmstedi), and piedmont darters (Percina crassa) making up equal but smaller minorities, we just did not
tally these separately. Suckers that were included under the sucker spp. were all northern hogsuckers (Hypentelium
nigricans), we just did not have them on the species list and instead put them under "sucker spp." FYI, the species list
on the field data collection sheets was compiled from that provided by Duke in their C/W Aquatics 01 Study Report (Table
4) which cites Goudreau (1994). I did rapidly identify some shiners as warpaint shiner (Luxilus coccogenis) due to the
distinguishing characteristics, but most were relatively small and because of time we put them as cyprinid spp. No fish
were preserved as it was our understanding that this was not to take place due to the relocation effort.
Question 2. Were the dead fish we saw on the first day included in the totals? The ones we saw were mostly white
suckers. Also, the white perch were not included in the table. Were there other dead fish found further downstream?
What were the total numbers of dead fish?
Answer 2. The dead fish we observed on the first day were not included in the totals, as these totals represent those fish
that were collected via electrofishing. Counting the two dead white sucker and two white perch, those were the only
dead fish we observed. We did suffer some mortalities in transport due to some smaller fish (a few darters and minnows)
becoming stuck under a portion of the fiberglass tank that was not flush with the bottom. No dead or dying fish were
observed downstream of the study area for the three consecutive days after the outage.
Question 3. Ranges of fish lengths, by species, was part of the monitoring plan. At a minimum, any information on the
sizes of trout and walleye would be helpful.
Answer 3. The 30 brown trout that were relocated ranged in size from 5 - 12 in while the two rainbow trout were from 5-
7 in with parr marks noticeable on both. We have photos that have not been downloaded yet of the trout but we will be
sending those out soon. All walleye collected were approximately 3-4 in. It is possible that a few of these could have
been young yellow perch, but most did appear to be young walleye.
Question 4. Looks like the temp loggers at Bridge 1 went dry. Not sure if you had them reset to a deeper spot or if the
slightly higher flows the past few days have re-covered them with water. Still quite a bit of short-term (15-minute)
fluctuations makes me suspicious. Need to make sure these are collecting good data.
4. Apparently, the tidbits at the first bridge were tampered with and out of the water when our technician checked them.
Question 5. Am somewhat concerned with the drop in DO concentration and %DO at Bridge 1 over the three days of data
collected with the Hydrolab. Need to keep an eye on this.
i

5. The DO readings taken by our technician on the morning (0823) of 4/5 at the first bridge was 7.63 mg/L. Although
DO did initially show a decrease the first three days, one week later it was 7.63. Weekly monitoring will continue for the
duration of the outage.
Some additional information concerning the fish relocation:
• many of the sunfish spp. were green sunfish with some appearing to be hybrid green sunfish. These were
included in the sunfish spp. group due to the fact that they were not on the species list. We also collected
redbreast, and bluegill of which those were separated out.
• On April 11, 2011, our technician did note one deceased common carp (Cyprinus carpio) near the confluence of
Muddy Creek and the Linville River. The cause of death is unknown.
Thanks
James McRacken
Senior Scientist/Terrestrial Lead
HDRIDTA
400 South Tryon, Suite 24011 Charlotte, NC 28285
Office: 704.377.4182 1 Direct: 704.342.7373 Fax: [phone]
` Before printing, please consider the environment
2

Date CFS at Calvin Gage
4/4/2011 284 cfs
4/5/2011 453 cfs
4/6/2011 376 cfs
4/7/2011 342 cfs
4/8/2011 312 cfs
4/9/2011 312 cfs
4/10/2011 521 cfs
4/11/2011 342 cfs

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