Timing is everything; operational changes at a pumping station with a gravity sluice to provide safe downstream passage for silver European eels and deliver considerable financial savings
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Published source details
Carter L.J., Wright R.M., Thomas R.E., Reeds J., Murphy L.A., Collier S.J., Evans O., Baktoft H. & Bolland J.D. (2023) Timing is everything; operational changes at a pumping station with a gravity sluice to provide safe downstream passage for silver European eels and deliver considerable financial savings. Journal of Environmental Management, 347, 119143.
Published source details Carter L.J., Wright R.M., Thomas R.E., Reeds J., Murphy L.A., Collier S.J., Evans O., Baktoft H. & Bolland J.D. (2023) Timing is everything; operational changes at a pumping station with a gravity sluice to provide safe downstream passage for silver European eels and deliver considerable financial savings. Journal of Environmental Management, 347, 119143.
Actions
This study is summarised as evidence for the following.
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Modify operation of dams/barriers Action Link |
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Modify operation of dams/barriers
A replicated study in 2018 and 2020 in a river in Lincolnshire, UK (Carter et al. 2023) reported that when electric pumps were turned off and a gravity sluice opened at night, most European silver eels Anguilla anguilla passed downstream through the sluice and none passed through the pumps. In 2018, 21 of 24 eels (88%) that approached the pumping station, when the pumps were switched off and gravity sluice opened, passed through the sluice. In 2020, sixteen of 18 (89%) eels that approached the pumping station passed through the sluice. The other 2–3 eels that approached in each year did not pass through the pumps or sluice. In both years, no eels passed through the pumps when they were switched off and the sluice was open, but five eels in total passed through the pumps when they were switched on and the sluice closed. In October–December 2018 and September–November 2020, electric pumps were turned off every night (17:00 to 07:00 h) and a gravity sluice was opened specifically for eel passage on 10–16 nights (during the new moon and full moon phase of the lunar cycle). The gravity sluice was opened for periods of 2 h 30 min to 4 h 10 min each night. Adult silver eels caught using fyke nets roughly 200 m upstream of the pumping station, were anaesthetised, tagged and released roughly 6 km upstream. Eels were tracked at the pumping station using acoustic receivers.
(Summarised by: Vanessa Cutts)
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