Brandywine Creek Shad Restoration Project
Date
2016-04
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Abstract
This is a project on Brandywine Creek Shad Restoration that is centered around the fish passage category.
The Nature Conservancy of Delaware (TNC) and University of Delaware Water Resources Center (UD) propose to collaborate with the City of Wilmington to conduct a feasibility study, prepare conceptual engineering drawings, and initiate permitting and regulatory approvals to restore fish passage, specifically American shad, hickory shad, river herring, striped bass and other anadromous species, to the Brandywine Creek through the City of Wilmington, Delaware. The long-term conservation outcome of this proposal is to restore fish passage and habitat to the 320 sq. mi. Brandywine Creek watershed by removing on-stream dams and/or installing fish ladders, fish notches, rock ramps or bypass channels. Map 1 depicts the 11 dams along the creek that will be the focus of this analysis. Currently there are 11 low head (2 ft to 10 ft high) dams along 7.2 miles of the Delaware portion of the Brandywine Creek that stretch from tidewater upstream into the Piedmont to 120 ft above sea level (Table 1). The known dams in Delaware include Dam 1 (West Street), Dam 2 (Brandywine Park City Dam), Dam 3 (Augustine Mill), Dam 4 (Bancroft Mills), Dam 5 (Brandywine Falls), Dam 6 (DuPont Research), Dam 7 (Breck’s Mill), Dam 8 (Henry Clay Mill, Hagley), Dam 9 (Upper Hagley), Dam 10 (Eleutherian Mills), Dam 11 (Rockland Mills).
American shad {Alosa sapidisimmd) were once an abundant migratory fish found throughout East Coast rivers and streams of North America, including the Brandywine River in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Shad were an important part of Native American and early colonial diets, and later, were the basis of an important commercial fishery in larger rivers like the Susquehanna and Delaware. Spring runs of shad comprised a unique and dramatic natural phenomenon, now a lost part of our cultural heritage. Shad restoration efforts are underway in numerous rivers and streams along the East Coast