Picture of Anchorage
Caption: breaking down barriers, making
inroads for Alaska’s salmon Alaskan Women Engineer Wild Salmon Passages
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Fish gotta swim, but it’s not as easy as it used to be - even in Alaska, one of the planet’s last great strongholds for wild salmon. Compared to most other places, of course, Alaska’s salmon are doing relatively well, but they’re forced to navigate an increasing number of obstacles as more people move into the state and transportation infrastructure expands.
Two women, Jess Straub and Heather Hanson, bring engineering expertise to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service design team that works to restore fish passages where roads cross Alaska’s rivers and streams.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: “It’s not so much a matter of existing dams in Alaska. Most of the state’s rivers are undammed. Poorly designed culverts where roads cross streams present the biggest problems.” - Bill Rice
A former fish passage engineer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska who now works to address fish passage issues across the West and the Great Plains
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Delays can cost them their lives. Particularly for juvenile salmon who can’t muscle their way upstream or jump up into old culverts as well as the adults returning to spawn. In Alaska baby Chinook and Coho Salmon, as well as other resident fishes like the Arctic Grayling and Rainbow Trout need to find food, safe temperatures and flows throughout the seasons.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Staff in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Habitat Branch take this issue seriously. Heather Hanson and Jessica Straub are using their engineering skills to help clear the way for Alaska’s precious salmon runs.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Heather came to Alaska after earning an engineering degree from the University of Idaho and working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on dam fish passage structures in the Pacific Northwest. She now works out of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office in Anchorage, Alaska.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Jess grew up in New Hampshire, earned a Batchelor’s degree in Environmental Resource Engineering from the SUNY college of Environmental Engineering and Forestry at Syracuse, New York, and moved to Alaska after a stint in the Lower 48 working on water conservation projects.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Together, they design some of the most sophisticated and successful road-stream crossings on the planet—ones with both fish and floods in mind.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: “Our habitat team has put in a lot of fish-friendly culverts in the four years that I’ve been doing this job,” says Heather, “and we have a lot more planned. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to doing everything possible to improve prospects for salmon.” Channel-spanning Culver’s let fish and floods pass freely
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: “It’s a balance between office and field work,” she says. “We design projects in the winter and mud season, and then construct and install the fish-friendly road-stream crossings during the summer.” Jessica, widely known as Jess, has been working for Heather since August 2019 and enjoys the fact that her job requires both intellectual rigor and vigorous physical effort. The most rewarding part?
“Just the fact that you see a project come together from start to finish, and that it has an incredible payoff,” Jess says.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Fish passage science and engineering have been around for a few decades, but the process has been greatly refined over the past few years. “Thirty years ago,” says Heather, “the basic goal was to simply put in culverts that allowed a significant percentage of a stream’s flows to pass under roadways more or less unimpeded. The rest was left up to the fish, and results were mixed.”
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: “These days, the agency’s general goal is on returning streams to as natural a condition as possible, and our passage designs reflect that,” Heather says. “And while our primary focus is on salmon, we’re also taking into account all the other fish and wildlife that inhabit any given project site. In addition to fish, mammals, etc, can also use them as safety corridors to avoid crossing roads.”
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: That means “not thinking in straight lines” and minimal emphasis on steel and concrete, Heather says. Rock banks are incorporated directly into culverts to provide the niches young salmon need for resting , feeding, and hiding from predators. Rock substrates can also be used to create low-flow channels in the bottom of the culverts to ensure the fish always have enough water for passage.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Bigger is better, when it comes to culverts “We generally take out smaller culverts and replace them with large, embedded ones,” says Jess. “Smaller culverts disrupt the ability of a stream to transport sediment or build a floodplain. So our culverts can range from 6 to 35 feet in diameter. We want them to be at least as wide as the stream we’re working on.”
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: Alaska’s salmon are facing multiple obstacles involving everything from climate change to heavy resource demands. These challenges may sometimes seem daunting, but the successes posted by fish passage engineers such as Heather and Jess demonstrate there’s also real reason for optimism.
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: “In terms of addressing and keeping habitat connected for fish, I personally think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to resolving the most critical fish barriers over the next 10-20 years, and I think Heather and Jess are going to make big contributions toward that end.” - Bill Rice, former Alaska USFWS
fish passage engineer
Picture of Anchorage
Caption: All other photos:
USFWS/Katrina Liebich Fish jumping into old culvert: USFWS/Franklin Dekker Fish-Friendly Roads (yes that’s a thing) - on medium.com Alaskan Women Engineer Passage for Wild Salmon - on medium.com Rocky Road (culvert woes, not the ice cream) - Alaska Business Monthly’s Transportation Issue on medium.com Thank You For Reading! Photo Credits Links (More Info)
