BAT SQUAD

WA State TU’s Barrier Assessment Training (BAT) Program

Background

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that WA State must fund the work necessary to replace all culverts on state land that represent a significant barrier to migrating fish. Although the ruling applied only to state lands, all landowners, including federal, county and private, are now aware that problem barriers must be replaced. Given that there are as many as 40,000 culverts around the state, and not all are equally harmful to fish, there is an immediate need to assess and prioritize culverts regarding potential impacts.

WATU & WDFW Partnership

WA TU State Council has created a unique partnership with WDFW to train and deploy a team of TU volunteers willing and able to conduct these assessments. We’re currently working to finalize the processes and procedures necessary to begin conducting the assessments after it becomes safe to do so – we will always keep the safety of our volunteers at the top of our priorities.

This web page is designed to provide accurate and up-to-date information regarding all-things-BAT-related. It’s new, so there will be on-going changes and improvements over time – suggestions are always welcome.

Welcome to BAT Land!

BAT Rules & Facts

• All assessments must be done by teams of two (no exceptions)
• As of April 2020 there are 5 sets of equipment available currently
• TU has created a an ArcGIS portal that allows us to directly link to WDFW’s culvert database to determine where culverts are, show whatever assessment info is available for that culvert etc (see below).

WDFW Links

Fish Passage Program Overview

Fish Passage Training

Fish Passage Inventory, Assessment, and Prioritization Manual (also embedded below)

WA State Fish Passage Map

WDFW’s website explaining culvert assessment and the fish passage program is here.

WDFW has created a comprehensive manual that provides detailed instructions on how to do culvert assessments. Embedded below is a copy of this PDF. This manual is the basis for all of their training.

You need to know there are two separate types of assessments and related training included in the manual:

1. Fish barriers (culverts)
2. Fish habitat.

Both types are discussed in the manual, but for now we need to limit our focus to the fish barrier material.

The forms people will need to access and use are found in Appendix E, pages E1 – E6, and instructions are included for each form.

There’s also some additional information people may find helpful when completing the forms. That in-depth material can be found in Chapter 3, Section 3.3 ‘Level A Culvert Assessment’, which starts halfway down on page 3-4 and continues through p. 3-42.

(feature add – direct link to content referenced above)