The primary goal of the proposed project is to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of a fish trap to be installed in the tailrace of Albeni Falls Dam by the Kalispel Tribe of Indians (herein ‘Tribe’).  The Tribe requested the assistance of PNNL to evaluate the trap based on their unique and extensive experience with various electronic monitoring technologies and over a decade of experience studying migratory fishes at Albeni Falls Dam.  The trap will be primarily designed to capture migrating bull trout Salvelinus confluentus and westslope cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi, which will then be manually transported above Albeni Falls Dam by the Tribe as a means of temporary passage until a more permanent fish passage structure is built.  The trap is currently being designed by McMillen LLC of Boise, Idaho and has been preliminarily designed with a denil fish ladder installed on a floating pontoon structure approximately 21’ in length (as of 4 December 2013).  The denil portion of the trap will be about 16’ long x 2’ wide and will end at an aluminum holding tank approximately 4’ wide, 4’ long and 3’ deep located on the floating structure.  Fish passing from the denil ladder into the holding tank will pass through a finger weir, which will theoretically prevent them from exiting the trap through the denil ladder.  The tentative plan is for the trap to be installed and operating from spring through fall of 2014 to be available for bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout that migrate during this period.  
A secondary goal is to continue operation of previously installed telemetry equipment upstream of Albeni Falls Dam; these stations will remain in place in 2014 for evaluation of previously tagged study fish, and will also be available to detect any newly tagged fish that are transported upstream of Albeni Falls Dam after capture in the fish trap.Objectives

PNNL has two objectives during 2015:

1) Determine the movement behavior of tagged fish within the tailrace of Albeni Falls Dam and whether they enter the fish trap, or come in close proximity of the trap but do not enter it.
2) Continue radio telemetry system monitoring upstream of Albeni Falls Dam in the Pend Oreille River and in the Priest River.