Evaluation of the Wabash River Fish Community after a Power Plant Shutdown

This study was conducted to determine how the fish community in the Wabash River has changed following the shutdown of the Breed Power Plant.  The fish community was sampled by electrofishing at five locations and seining at two locations.  Three of the electrofishing and one of the seining locations are downstream of the former plant site.  These locations have been sampled periodically over the past 30 years, which provides a robust pre-shutdown baseline against which we can evaluate the present fish community.  Sampling was conducted in 2011, 2012, and 2013.  These collections yielded about 80 species with the composition generally being similar to that before the plant was retired.  However, there seems to seems to be a reach-wide decline in the number and variety of darters and madtoms.  The current data set will be compared to data collected from the same locations during the period when the plant was operating.  Although statistical analysis are still underway, the following preliminary conclusions have been drawn:

• The fish community has not changed appreciably
• Electrofishing species richness and catch rates generally have improved.
• Seining species richness has generally declined.
• There is no evidence that retirement of the Breed Plant has improved the fish community.