144th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society

August 17 - 21, 2014

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January 2014 will release a final rule implementing §316(b) of the Clean Water Act.  Long in development, this regulatory action will affect over 700 facilities (power plants, pulp and paper mills, iron mills, chemical plants, oil & gas) around the U.S. that use cooling water. For successful implementation, the industries, federal and state regulatory and resource agencies, non-governmental organizations and the public will all need the latest information on technologies and related information for protecting fish and shellfish at cooling water intakes – this includes traveling water screens, velocity caps, intake velocity, barrier nets, behavioral systems, closed cycle cooling systems, and other methods for reducing, excluding or collecting and returning fish and shellfish to source water bodies. Information will also be needed on methods for characterizing impingement and entrainment and for determining the performance of technologies.  Methods for economic analysis to determine the cost-benefit for compliance activities may also be needed. This symposium will gather practitioners with expertise in fish protection/bioengineering at cooling water intakes to present and discuss the latest scientific developments in this field.  Symposium organizers, because of the national importance of this regulatory action, expect a robust assortment of presentation topics that will easily fill two full-days of conference time. A preliminary list of topics and presenters is included herein. It is also expected to be a well attended symposium attracting participants that do not regularly attend AFS Annual Meetings.