AUTHORS: Marvin Boyer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District; Laura Totten, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District
ABSTRACT: The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) have partnered to form the Sustainable Rivers Program (SRP) to examine opportunities to optimize reservoir releases and river flows to benefit river ecology while maintaining the federal mandates of the reservoir systems within the United States. The mission of the SRP is to improve the health and life of rivers by changing water infrastructure operations to restore and protect ecosystems, while maintaining or enhancing other project benefits. The USACE Kansas City District and TNC Kansas and Missouri added the Kansas River and the Osage River to the SRP. Workshops were held with regional biology and hydrology experts to help guide the process of identifying e-flows and e-pool management measures. Literature reviews and data mining exercises were undertaken for the Kansas and Osage River systems to identify flow-dependent fish, mussels, and other species and their habitats, examine changes in these species over time, and propose the likely causes of these changes. This information was used to better understand reservoir operation impacts and examine possibilities for reservoir management modifications within the range of authorized reservoir releases that would create flows beneficial to the Kansas and Osage Rivers ecosystems. SRP expanded from traditional e-flows work and began funding projects that targeted managing pool levels at USACE reservoirs, raising and lowering the water surface elevation of wetlands, lakes, or river pools for the purpose of stimulating aquatic seed germination, improving aquatic plant and animal diversity, consolidating wetland soils, and other ecological and environmental effects. The SRP USACE team is currently working to find opportunities to implement test flows outlined in workshops and incorporate recent Kansas and Osage Rivers e-flow and e-pool information into ongoing reservoir Water Control Manual Updates.
