Fish Passage Projects Support Migrating Fish, Recreational Opportunities and Flood Prevention

The National Fish Passage Program Restores Rivers, Protects Wildlife, And Builds Economies

Apr 21, 2023

Across the country National Fish Passage Program projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) is a once-in-a-generation investment in the nation’s infrastructure and economic competitiveness. We were directly appropriated $455 million over five years in BIL funds for programs related to the President’s America the Beautiful initiative.

Learn more about Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help restore rivers, protect wildlife, support communities, and improve climate resilience.

In 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced 22 states will receive $35 million to support 39 projects that will address outdated or obsolete dams, culverts, levees and other barriers fragmenting our nation’s rivers and streams.

Around the world, millions of barriers are fragmenting rivers, blocking fish migration, and putting communities at higher risk to flooding. Improving fish passage fish passage
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move freely throughout their life to find food, reproduce, and complete their natural migration cycles. Millions of barriers to fish passage across the country are fragmenting habitat and leading to species declines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program is working to reconnect watersheds to benefit both wildlife and people.

Learn more about fish passage is one of the most effective ways to help conserve vulnerable species while building safer infrastructure for communities and improving climate resilience. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provides a once-in-a generation opportunity to invest in climate resilient infrastructure, healthy rivers and streams, and abundant fisheries. The 2023 projects represent the second year of a five-year commitment and build on the 40 projects announced last year.

This year, there are 23 projects that have Tribal involvement and nine projects that are Tribally-led, where funding is going directly to those awarded Tribes. Many of these projects will help with conservation efforts for threatened or endangered species.

A small silvery fish in front of a white background. The fish's fins have a pinkish tinge. — The sicklefin redhorse, a freshwater fish, can grow to 25 inches long. It has a sickle-shaped back fin that is olive-colored, sometimes partly red. Its body is also olive, with a coppery or brassy sheen; its lower fins are primarily dusky to dark, often tinted yellow or orange and pale edged; the tail fin is mostly red.

Ela Dam Removal (North Carolina), $4 million – This project will reopen nearly 550 miles of habitat to several sensitive and rare aquatic species, including sicklefin redhorse, a vital food source for Tribal ancestors of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and Appalachian elktoe, a federally endangered freshwater mussel.

Restoring Access to Tyonek Creek (Alaska), $780,000 – This project will complete a 10-year, multiagency effort to remove all barriers in the Tyonek Creek watershed, near the Native village of Tyonek, opening a total of 31 miles for subsistence salmon populations.

Talbot Mills Dam Removal on the Concord River (Massachusetts), $1,043,951 – This will be the largest dam removal in the history of the state, reopening 135 stream miles to anadromous species that have not had passage since the 1700s.

Maple River Reconnection (Michigan), $1.9 million – This project will protect surrounding agricultural land from flooding events and support the cultural restoration and expansion of indigenous Manoomin (wild rice) crop, which is important to the Little River Band of Ottawa Indian Tribe.

FY23 National Fish Passage projects with funding from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Project Name	State, County	Funding
Making Progress Towards a Barrier-Free Copper River	AK, Copper River	$525,000
Restoring Access to Tyonek Creek	AK, Kenai Peninsula Borough	$780,000
Deep Creek Watershed Fish Passage Improvements	AK, Kenai Peninsula Borough	$1,365,000
Subsistence Salmon Habitat Restoration	AK, Kenai Peninsula Borough	$262,500
Metlakatla Indian Community Fish Passage Project	AK, Prince of Wales Hyder	$630,000
Yakutat Forest Highway 10 Aquatic Organism Passage	AK, Yakutat City	$491,000
Crooked Creek Route 55 Culvert Fish Passage Project	AZ, Apache	$325,000
Waukell and Junior Creeks Culvert Replacements Project	CA, Del Norte	$2,000,000
Dye Creek Fish Passage Improvement Project	CA, Tehama	$2,662,800
Steamboat Rock Dam Removal and Restoration	IA, Hardin	$1,000,000
Forest City Dam to Rapids Conversion Project	IA, Winnebago	$150,000
Coeur d’Alene Tribe Lake Creek Culvert Replacement	ID, Kootenai	$500,800
Zena Creek Fish Passage Project	ID, Valley	$145,000
Fort Wayne Rivers Fisheries Improvement Project	IN, Allen	$900,000
Removal of a Low-Head Dam and Fish Passage Barrier	IN, Johnson	$560,000
Shadyside Park Low-head Dam Removal	IN, Madison	$300,000
Dam Removals Along the East Fork of Whitewater River	IN, Wayne	$650,000
Upper Coonamessett River Wetland Complex Restoration	MA, Barnstable	$1,052,500
Talbot Mills Dam Removal, Concord River	MA, Middlesex	$1,043,951
Reconnecting Habitat for Eastern Brook Trout	MD, Allegany	$1,200,000
Woodland Dam Fishway, St. Croix River, ME	ME, Washington	$2,000,000
Restoring Fish Passage in Claybank Creek	MI, Manistee	$300,000
Landscape-scale Maple River Reconnection Project	MI, Muskegon & Newaygo	$1,925,650
Priority Fish Passage Improvements in Western Montana	MT, Multiple	$900,000
Ela Dam Removal Project	NC, Swain	$4,000,000
Washburn Dam Removal, Mohawk River	NH, Coos	$500,000
The Removal of the Upper and Lower E.R. Collins Dams	NJ, Warren	$1,478,049
Hogback Sluiceway Gate	NM, San Juan	$648,735
Ouachita Forest Fords	OK, McCurtain	$1,000,000
Low-Head Dam Removal on Long Tom River at Monroe, Oregon	OR, Benton	$740,000
Ochoco Preserve Restoration – Phase 2	OR, Crook	$400,000
Salamander Parcel Floodplain Reconnection	OR, Douglas	$200,000
Perkins Creek Culvert Replacement (x6)	OR, Lane	$699,061
Flint Hill Church Fish Passage & Flood Control Project	SC, Greenwood	$400,000
Fish Passage on the Little Minnesota River	SD, Roberts	$250,000
Tidal Fish Barrier and Estuary Habitat Restoration	WA, Pacific	$1,050,000
Lower Toppenish Creek Fish Passage Restoration	WA, Yakima	$1,615,400
Upper Greenbrier River Watershed Fish Passage	WV, Pocahontas	$939,500
Retrofit of Killdeer Diversion Dam on the Green River	WY, Sweetwater	$250,000

Construction has already started or completed on many of the 40 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded fish passage projects announced last year in 2022.

large jackhammer removes concrete dam — Construction crews demolishing Town Dam on the Sabattus River in Maine

Sabattus River Restoration (Maine) – This project removed the Upper Town Dam from the Sabattus River, a tributary to the Androscoggin River. The second dam removal is scheduled for later in 2023. These efforts are expected to reopen 2,309 acres of lake and pond habitat and 25 miles of river and stream habitat for alewife, blueback herring, American shad, federally endangered Atlantic salmon, and American eel.

Gustavus Alaska Landscape Scale Watershed Restoration (Alaska) – This project removed the last culvert impeding fish passage and replaced it with a timber bridge, completing the effort to provide unimpeded access to six miles of habitat for Pacific salmon, Dolly Varden Char, and Coastal Cutthroat Trout. The project also fixed the traffic safety issue which came along with a narrow road with no guard rails, unstable banks, and a failing embankment.

Upper Clark Fork Fish Passage for Bull Trout and Westslope Cutthroat(Montana) – This project, which is located on the traditional lands of the Salish and Shoshone-Bannock Indigenous peoples, supports economic development and creates stable diversions to help buffer the local community against potential loss of crops due to climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change .

Potomac Headwaters Fish Passage Restoration (West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland) – This project is implementing up to 17 fish passage barrier removal projects, including dam removals and road-stream crossing replacements, to reconnect over 195 miles of habitat for brook trout and American eel in the headwaters of the Potomac Watershed.

The National Fish Passage Program: Leaders in Building Bridges and Fostering Connections

man and woman standing in a creek holding two nets and looking into the water — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams helps Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks biologist Caleb Uerling trap a bull trout. Photo courtesy of Zoe Bommarito/Trout Unlimited

The National Fish Passage Program is a national leader connecting watersheds and people. The program has decades of experience implementing infrastructure projects with partners. Under BIL we are bringing that experience to bear to foster collaboration between federal agencies, Tribes, states, and non-profit partners.

Since 1999, the program has worked with over 2,000 local communities, Tribes, and private landowners to remove or bypass over 3,400 barriers to fish passage and reopen access to over 61,000 miles of upstream habitat for fish and other animals. Staff have expertise in fish migration and biology as well as financial, engineering, and planning assistance to communities, Tribes, and landowners to help them remove barriers and restore rivers for the benefit both fish and people.

The rivers, streams, and coastal systems of North America once supported vast annual runs of fish such as Pacific salmon, American shad, blueback herring, Pacific lamprey and American eel. These species and many others, including some at-risk and listed species, depend on connected streams and high-quality habitat to survive. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Fish Passage Program are committed to reconnecting rivers for the benefit of all.

Federal Interagency Fish Passage Portal

The Federal Interagency Fish Passage Portal is a resource for anyone who needs information, funding, or technical assistance to improve fish passage and aquatic connectivity projects. We provide landowners and public lands managers the tools they need to access fish passage resources across the federal government.

The Fish Passage Portal will be a living repository of the best resources and information from across the federal government. It will be updated regularly to meet all your project needs from planning, to funding, to implementation. Rather than having to scour federal websites for the information you need, the portal will provide the information you need in one free and easy to access location.

ACCESS THE INTERAGENCY FISH PASSAGE PORTAL