The U.S. Forest Service has awarded a US$34,733 contract to Stillwater Ecosystem Watershed Riverine to perform a lamprey habitat study upstream of Oregon’s 11-MW Soda Springs hydropower project.
The Forest Service last sought bids for the work in June for work that includes quantitative baseline spawning and rearing habitat surveys, mapping, and report documentation for Pacific lamprey and Western Brook lamprey upstream of Soda Springs Dam in the Diamond Lake Ranger District of Umpqua National Forest.
Work is also to include developing habitat suitability criteria and habitat survey protocol, collecting habitat data, and analyzing and mapping that data for documentation in a report
The PacifiCorp-operated Soda Springs Dam — located on the North Umpqua River — is one of eight developments in the 194-MW North Umpqua hydroelectric project.
During relicensing of North Umpqua, the Forest Service had pushed for removal of Soda Springs Dam. Instead, as a condition of relicensing in 2003, PacifiCorp was required to provide fish passage for adult salmon and lamprey at Soda Springs.
Other developments of the North Umpqua project are 31.99-MW Lemolo 1, 38.55-MW Lemolo 2, 15-MW Clearwater 1, 26-MW Clearwater 2, 42.5-MW Toketee, 11-MW Fish Creek, and 18-MW Slide Creek.
