Threatened and Endangered Fish Passage on the Alabama River | W81EWF 22 SOI 0027

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81EWF 22 SOI 0027

The grant opportunity "Threatened and Endangered Fish Passage on the Alabama River" focuses on a practical conservation and engineering question: whether navigation lock operations on the Alabama River can function as a meaningful pathway for large river fish to move upstream past dams, and how future fish-passage infrastructure should be designed to restore historic migration routes. Many Alabama River species once depended on long-distance movements, often tied to spawning, including high-profile migratory fishes such as sturgeons (notably the federally endangered Alabama sturgeon), paddlefish, and striped bass, along with lesser known but ecologically important nongame fishes like the southeastern blue sucker, smallmouth buffalo, and highfin carpsucker. Because dams have sharply reduced or effectively eliminated these migrations, the opportunity is aimed at generating the movement and behavioral data needed to guide mitigation decisions and avoid further population declines tied to blocked passage.

The background for this work comes from early field research where fisheries scientists tagged fish and deployed a network of 19 acoustic receivers stretching from the Mobile Delta to the Cahaba River, including receivers positioned inside lock chambers at Claiborne and Millers Ferry. These receivers automatically detect tagged fish as they pass, allowing researchers to reconstruct when and where fish move and whether they approach, enter, or successfully transit lock structures. During this preliminary phase, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers supported the study by performing daily special non-navigational lockages, essentially creating additional lock cycles that were not tied to commercial navigation. Those extra cycles increased the number of opportunities fish had to enter and potentially pass through the locks. Early findings showed that fish do use the lock chambers during these specialized operations in much the same way they can during normal navigation lockages. The concern raised in the opportunity is that if lock operations are reduced or halted, those passage opportunities disappear, which could further suppress upstream spawning migrations and contribute to long-term declines or local loss of sensitive species.

A major driver behind the solicitation is that new fish-passage infrastructure is being considered for the system, but decision-makers still lack clear answers about which approach is most effective and least disruptive. Options mentioned include bypass channels, fishways, and fish lifts, but the opportunity notes uncertainty about how different structures would affect not only immediate passage success, but also broader outcomes like upstream distribution, population-level effects, and overall ecosystem health. In other words, the project is positioned to supply the evidence base needed to compare alternatives and reduce the risk of investing in expensive infrastructure that does not work well for the species and conditions of the Alabama River.

The anticipated work is centered on two U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facilities on the Alabama River, each with its own research emphasis: Claiborne Lock and Dam and Montgomery Lock and Dam. At Claiborne, the need is to evaluate how well different passage approaches improve fish movement through or around the structure and what the downstream implications might be for populations, such as whether improved passage translates into more fish reaching spawning areas and sustaining recruitment over time. The opportunity also points out that while the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) already has two-dimensional movement data for three species at Claiborne, the river supports a wider migratory community. The project therefore calls for additional movement data on more species, ideally spanning a range of body sizes as field conditions and sampling allow, so that passage solutions are not narrowly tailored to only a few taxa.

At Montgomery Lock and Dam, the data gap is even larger. The solicitation states that no high-resolution movement data currently exist there for any species. Montgomery also differs from Claiborne because it includes an operating hydropower facility, which may alter flow patterns, attraction cues, and fish behavior in ways that complicate passage and make mitigation design more challenging. As a result, the grant anticipates collecting new movement data at Montgomery across species, including those already studied at Claiborne, while explicitly accounting for hydropower operations and how they may shape fish routes, approach behavior, and passage success.

Across both sites, the opportunity envisions a mix of field, laboratory, and numerical modeling work. Field studies would likely include additional tagging and receiver deployments or refinements to capture high-resolution movement paths and passage attempts. Laboratory and numerical studies are described as companion efforts intended to support and interpret field data, which often means controlled experiments or hydraulic and behavioral modeling to test how fish respond to flow fields, entrances, and structural configurations. The solicitation also encourages partnerships with other universities working on similar lock-and-dam fish migration problems in the Southeast and the Mississippi River watershed, suggesting an interest in cross-site learning and methods that can generalize beyond a single river reach.

Administratively, this is a Department of Defense opportunity through the Engineer Research and Development Center, offered as a discretionary cooperative agreement with an anticipated single award. The listed award ceiling is $1,000,000, with one expected award. The funding opportunity number is W81EWF 22 SOI 0027 under CFDA 12.630, categorized under science, technology, and other research and development. The original posting date was June 21, 2022, and the original closing date was August 22, 2022. The overall intent is to produce actionable, site-specific evidence on fish movement and passage at two key Alabama River dams so that near-term operational decisions and longer-term infrastructure investments can better support threatened, endangered, and other migratory fish species.

• The Department of Defense, Engineer Research and Development Center in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Threatened and Endangered Fish Passage on the Alabama River" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.630.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 21, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 22, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for W81EWF 22 SOI 0027

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