Presenter Information

John Perry, Maine DOT

Location

UMass Amherst

Start Date

29-6-2011 10:40 AM

End Date

29-6-2011 11:00 AM

Description

As unfavorable economic conditions continue to linger, Maine DOT continues to explore means to improve fish and aquatic organism passage utilizing cost-effective structures while continuing to maintain its infrastructure for the safety of the travelling public. While Maine DOT concedes that these will not provide the greatest benefits to overall stream health, they are vast improvements to improving habitat connectivity for many resident fish species, providing successful upstream passage that allows upstream habitat to be once again accessible for a variety of life stages throughout Maine. Several structure types are discussed here, including a sliplined culvert with weirs in Belfast and composite-invertlined multi-plate structures with weirs in Amherst and Ebeemee Township. As with all success stories, there have been failures along the way, but Maine DOT continues to improve on its passage techniques by learning from its mistakes. Passage strategies that did not go quite as planned will be discussed, including an early invertline attempt incorporating fish passage in Blue Hill, a slipline project with weirs in Johnson Mountain Township, and an invertlined multi-plate culvert with weirs in Canton.

Comments

John Perry is a biologist with the Field Services and Mitigation Unit at the Maine Department of Transportation. He has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Maine. He started his professional career as a biologist with Central Maine Power Company conducting fish, wildlife, and botanical impact studies associated with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing of hydroelectric facilities. He started in Maine State Government with the Department of Environmental Protection in 2001, and joined Maine DOT in 2004. Since then, John’s work has focused assisting Maine DOT programs to develop cost-effective fish passage strategies to meet permitting requirements, as well as conducting the post-construction monitoring to determine their efficacy. Other duties include consulting under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act for projects impacting Atlantic salmon and other federally endangered species, constructing and monitoring several stream relocation and restoration projects, and investigating treatments to reduce animal collisions at high crash locations throughout Maine.

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Jun 29th, 10:40 AM Jun 29th, 11:00 AM

Session A7- Preliminary results and lessons learned by balancing stream habitat connectivity and transportation needs while pinching pennies

UMass Amherst

As unfavorable economic conditions continue to linger, Maine DOT continues to explore means to improve fish and aquatic organism passage utilizing cost-effective structures while continuing to maintain its infrastructure for the safety of the travelling public. While Maine DOT concedes that these will not provide the greatest benefits to overall stream health, they are vast improvements to improving habitat connectivity for many resident fish species, providing successful upstream passage that allows upstream habitat to be once again accessible for a variety of life stages throughout Maine. Several structure types are discussed here, including a sliplined culvert with weirs in Belfast and composite-invertlined multi-plate structures with weirs in Amherst and Ebeemee Township. As with all success stories, there have been failures along the way, but Maine DOT continues to improve on its passage techniques by learning from its mistakes. Passage strategies that did not go quite as planned will be discussed, including an early invertline attempt incorporating fish passage in Blue Hill, a slipline project with weirs in Johnson Mountain Township, and an invertlined multi-plate culvert with weirs in Canton.