Threadfin shad overwinter in a West Virginia reservoir
Mount Storm Reservoir, Grant County, West Virginia, is used as a cooling lake for the effluent water from the condenser of a coal-fired electric generating plant. This reservoir, at a latitude of 39/sup 0/11', is apparently the most northern location at which threadfin shad (Dorosoma petenense) have been reported to overwinter. About 800 ripe adult shad from Lake Cumberland, Kentucky, were stocked in Mount Storm Reservoir on 29 May 1975. Later sampling with vertical gill nets yielded seven young-of-the-year shad 94 to 117 mm (3.7 to 4.6 in.) long in October 1975 and five 142 to 157 mm (5.6 to 6.2 in.) long in April 1976. The lowest surface water temperature recorded during the winter of 1975 to 76 in monthly samples at midlake was 8.3/sup 0/C in January. Accounts in the literature indicate that mass mortality of threadfin shad occurs at water temperatures below 7.2/sup 0/C (Parsons and Kimsey, 1954), although they have survived in ponds where winter temperatures dropped to 1.1/sup 0/C (Burns, 1966). The reservoir water has low total alkalinity (1975 to 76 range at midlake, 5 to 15 mg/l) and low pH (5.1 to 6.7). Because more than 1,894 kl/min (500,000 gal/min) of cooling water are returned to the lake, most of the lake is continually recirculated and water temperatures are nearly homogeneous. The collections in April 1976 indicate that threadfin shad can reproduce and live in infertile waters of low pH and that they can survive near-critical winter water temperatures in a reservoir receiving heated effluent.
- Research Organization:
- West Virginia Dept. of Natural Resources, Romney
- OSTI ID:
- 7313325
- Journal Information:
- Prog. Fish-Cult.; (United States), Vol. 39:1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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