By Susan Ehrenelou, TVA Staff Writer
Healthy Rivers Help Creatures, People, and Power Production
Steam, turbines, pumps, and rushing water – these are essential pieces of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power production. Also important? Little fish. Not to mention big fish, mussels, snails, and the tiniest of aquatic insects that live in the Tennessee River system.
Dave Matthews, TVA aquatic zoologist. TVA photo
Why?
These animals are vital indicators – canaries in the coalmine – of changes in water quality and quantity over time. That matters to the millions of people who rely on the Tennessee River for drinking water, irrigation, navigation, and recreation. And it matters to TVA, which depends on clean, flowing water to power the Valley region.
Enter TVA’s Fisheries and Aquatic Monitoring team.
They keep tabs on aquatic life throughout the Tennessee River watershed. The program helps TVA fulfill its mission in energy, environmental stewardship, and economic development. “TVA, uniquely, has the most potential to impact these aquatic systems. (It has included) stewardship and conservation efforts since its inception,” Lyn Williams, TVA Fisheries and Aquatic Monitoring manager, said.
Dave Matthews, TVA aquatic zoologist, agreed. “(Our work) goes back to one of the original mission statements of TVA,” he said. “We improve quality of life in the Tennessee Valley. What we do is build toward the future.”
TVA aquatic biologist Dave Matthews verifies rare fish identifications using a key. (Photos by Susan Ehrenclou / TVA)
Network of Knowledge
The 1933 TVA Act included a goal to survey and plan for the “proper use, conservation, and development of the natural resources of the Tennessee River drainage basin.” And TVA has done just that.
Today, the enterprise’s stewardship of the region’s waters and lands improves lives and brings billions of dollars to local economies through recreation and conservation. It also saves billions of dollars through flood control and ensures TVA can produce power across the Valley region.
From two labs at Chattanooga and Norris, Tennessee, biologists and zoologists head out to foggy streams in the still-dark mornings, on their way to monitor TVA-managed rivers and reservoirs. Their work fits into three main “buckets,” Williams said.
In the first – Index of Biotic Integrity – scientists monitor more than 200 fish species and hundreds of other species across 528 stream sites. They score each based on fish and insect species numbers, types, and health. Matthews and others look especially to density – how many fish they catch per square foot – and native species health. “That’s my 60,000-foot view,” Matthews said. “You can drill down on the other metrics to see what’s really going on.”
TVA also conducts an in-depth Sentinel monitoring program annually at 22 pristine sites as part of a long-term, multiagency effort.
And compliance monitoring ensures TVA’s operations keep rare species and their habitats healthy. Scientists measure flow, temperature, and oxygen levels as part of the Reservoir Release Improvement program, survey for endangered animals, and reintroduce them into restored rivers.
This program also helps TVA write environmental reviews and permits for projects – new pump storage facilities, boat ramp repairs, dewatering, and new fish habitat installations.
Overall, these monitoring programs provide in-depth, long-term data that helps ensure TVA has minimal impact on species. They also save money by having a consolidated and multistate data set.
‘Live and Breathe’ Hard Work
This job isn’t for the faint of heart.
Matthews holds a Northern hogsucker during work in the field.
Fisheries and Aquatic Monitoring crews can work 12-hour days in streams far from home, in frosty weather or in sweltering heat, up to seven months each year. They spend other months analyzing data in the lab.
“These people live and breathe this,” Williams said. “Not just in their professional capacity – this is what they do at home on the weekends.” When crews come in from sampling, they bring jars containing the few fish or aquatic insects they couldn’t definitively identify in the field, to verify records.
“This is our Aquatic lab where we work up our fish and bug specimens,” Dave Matthews, TVA aquatic zoologist, said. “We have dissecting scopes and reference manuals.” He swung open a door at the Norris lab to an oblong, sunlit space with chairs lined up neatly in front of microscopes and bookshelves bowed under the weight of fish and insect guides.
“We have to get positive ID on our vouchers,” Matthews said. “The first consideration of management is to know what you have. Monitoring is very, very important. We can detect changes in populations. We can detect encroachment by invasive species.”
He donned protective gloves and safety glasses, then pulled samples of preserved fish from a Tennessee creek onto trays to inspect them under the microscope. “Some of these – like blackstriped top minnow – they look like blackspotted top minnow,” Matthews said. “They look almost identical.”
He pointed out a blenny darter with big stripes, blackfin darters, and slender madtom. Next to them were common greenside daters, striped shiners, and a telescope shiner, so called because of its big eye, although Matthews pointed out its distinct unequal scales, too.
Over time, fish and insects move upstream or downstream, shrinking or expanding their range. Matthews has seen it all.
“I always looked at these streams and rivers as really good friends,” he said. “Some you go to visit in a given year, and they’re sick – they’re not doing too well. And some are doing great. You have to take the good and the bad. You have to know if anything’s changing.”
Matthews snapped off his gloves and nudged his glasses higher onto his nose. “These rivers and streams, they’re the arteries and the veins of the Tennessee Valley,” he said. “By monitoring, we have our finger on the pulse. We know what’s going on health-wise.”
And the health of these ecosystems doesn’t just matter for fish. It matters in all things, from ecotourism to hydropower to navigation, and draws in millions who fish, boat, swim, snorkel, and otherwise explore the nation’s most biodiverse waters.
Prosperous rivers ensure a prospering region.
“Our work is something very important,” Matthews said. “And it’s easily overlooked because it’s not concrete and steel, what we do.”
The Fisheries and Aquatic Monitoring team helps detect changes in fish and aquatic insect populations.
Expertise and Reach
Monitoring across the entire Tennessee River watershed for decades has allowed TVA to become a trusted partner.
“We have a knowledge and skill set that inherently can’t be replicated,” Williams said. “We work throughout (the watershed) consistently, year after year, decade after decade, as part of our mission.”
“We share this data with – well, name an agency,” Matthews said. “And a lot of universities, too.” Matthews had just fielded a request for data from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, while Williams had sent data to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and coordinated a project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Matthews stands at a balcony at the Norris fish lab. The species on display are native to the Valley region.
Each season, their team shares vital information about aquatic species with agencies and organizations in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. “It helps them do their work,” Matthews said. “They use that data to make wise environmental decisions. They can’t collect what we can. Nobody can – that’s the value of the Valley.”
Because of TVA’s positive reputation, agencies and organizations share their data, too.
“More thoughts, more ideas, more people are going to produce a better outcome than any single individual or agency can,” Williams said. “It goes back to ensuring the Valley region is as healthy as it can be from the ground up,” he continued. “We’ve always had a focus on these environmental stewardship efforts.
They provide a place for people to be in nature, recreate, and be happy.”
