University of Illinois - Improving fish passage at lock and dam structures in the Mississippi River. (UIUCMPLD)

Melvin Price Locks and Dam (MPLD) (formerly known as Lock and Dam 26) on the Mississippi River near Alton, IL, is a key shipping location that passes over 50 million tons of cargo and has almost 7,000 lockages per year. This location has been identified as a "high priority site for fish passage improvement" as there is a large amount of tributary habitat upstream that is challenging for fish to access due to the presence of the dam, and the dam also acts as a barrier to movement downstream. Thus, improving fish passage around MPLD would benefit fish populations and help mitigate negative consequences of the barrier. At present, little is known about how fish interact with MPLD, precluding us from making recommendations on fishway design at this site. The overall goal of this project is to quantify behavioral characteristics of fishes, both upstream and downstream of Melvin Price Locks and Dam. These studies are being funded by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). USACE is also heavily involved in project design and implementation so that the research has practical relevance to future fishway plans. . Information produced by this work may be used to develop guidelines for fish passage structures at MPLD, and the techniques developed as part of this project may serve as a model that can be applied at other Corps dams to help design successful fishways in the future. Together, this work can help minimize the impacts of navigation structures on aquatic ecosystems.

Points of Contact

• Cory Suski

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  Principal Investigator