8232

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8232
• Author: Burdick, B. D.
• Title: Evaluation of Fish Passage at the Grand Valley Irrigation Company Diversion Dam on the Colorado River Near Palisade, Colorado.
• USFW Year: 1999.
• USFW - Doc Type: CAP-17,
• Copyright Material: NO

ured to traverse diagonally from pool to pool create a maximum riffle gradient
of 1.3 percent. This maintains maximum riffle velocities below 3.5 ft/s
(Kubitschek and Mefford 1997). This type of structure is more natural than the
fish passageway constructed at the Redlands Diversion Dam i n 1996 on the Gunnison
River. Unlike the fish passageway at Redlands, the GVIC passage structure does
not have a trapping facility to allow researchers to definitively determine the
number and types of species using the passageway.
The Recovery Implementation Program (RIP) is pursuing fish passage at two
other diversion dams on the Upper Colorado River upstream of the GVIC Diversion
Dam to allow endangered fish unimpeded movement to historic stream reaches
upstream. Providing passage at GVIC will only extend the range of endangered
fishes upstream about 3 miles to Price-Stubb Dam. However, providing passage at
both Price-Stubb and Government Highline Diversion dams will potentially open up
an additional 50 miles of historic habitat upstream.
Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate whether sub-adult and
adult Colorado pikeminnow and other native and nonnative fishes .would move
upstream through the passage structure at the GVIC Diversion Dam.
Specific objectives were to:
1. determine if sub-adult and adult Colorado pikeminnow and other native
and nonnative fishes would move upstream via the passage structure,
with emphasis on upstream movement of native species during low flows,
2. determine the extent of movement of sub-adult and adult Colorado
pikeminnow in the immediate vicinity of the GVIC Diversion Dam, with
emphasis on movement upstream past the diversion dam, and
3. determine the utility of using the type of fish passage structure
constructed at GVIC as a recovery tool for Colorado pikeminnow and
razorback sucker at other instream barriers in the Upper Colorado
River Basin.
Anticipated end products from this evaluation included:
1. data on passage--number of species; numbers per species from
recaptured, marked fish,
2. data on temporal and spatial movement and distribution of transmitter-
tagged Colorado pikeminnow upstream, downstream, and in the immediate
vicinity of the diversion dam, and
3. numbers and species of nonnative fish removed from the river.
3