Barnthouse Lawrence W, Heimbuch Douglas G, Anthony Vaughn C, Hilborn Ray W, Myers Ransom A
LWB Environmental Services, Inc.,105 Wesley Lane, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA.
ScientificWorldJournal. 2002 May 18;2 Suppl 1:169-89. doi: 10.1100/tsw.2002.346.
We evaluated the impacts of entrainment and impingement at the Salem Generating Station on fish populations and communities in the Delaware Estuary. In the absence of an agreed-upon regulatory definition of "adverse environmental impact" (AEI), we developed three independent benchmarks of AEI based on observed or predicted changes that could threaten the sustainability of a population or the integrity of a community. Our benchmarks of AEI included: (1) disruption of the balanced indigenous community of fish in the vicinity of Salem (the "BIC" analysis); (2) a continued downward trend in the abundance of one or more susceptible fish species (the "Trends" analysis); and (3) occurrence of entrainment/impingement mortality sufficient, in combination with fishing mortality, to jeopardize the future sustainability of one or more populations (the "Stock Jeopardy" analysis). The BIC analysis utilized nearly 30 years of species presence/absence data collected in the immediate vicinity of Salem. The Trends analysis examined three independent data sets that document trends in the abundance of juvenile fish throughout the estuary over the past 20 years. The Stock Jeopardy analysis used two different assessment models to quantify potential long-term impacts of entrainment and impingement on susceptible fish populations. For one of these models, the compensatory capacities of the modeled species were quantified through meta-analysis of spawner-recruit data available for several hundred fish stocks. All three analyses indicated that the fish populations and communities of the Delaware Estuary are healthy and show no evidence of an adverse impact due to Salem. Although the specific models and analyses used at Salem are not applicable to every facility, we believe that a weight of evidence approach that evaluates multiple benchmarks of AEI using both retrospective and predictive methods is the best approach for assessing entrainment and impingement impacts at existing facilities.
我们评估了塞勒姆发电站的吸鱼和撞鱼现象对特拉华河口鱼类种群及群落的影响。由于缺乏公认的“不利环境影响”（AEI）监管定义，我们基于观察到的或预测的可能威胁种群可持续性或群落完整性的变化，制定了三个独立的AEI基准。我们的AEI基准包括：（1）塞勒姆附近鱼类本土群落平衡的破坏（“BIC”分析）；（2）一种或多种易受影响鱼类的数量持续下降趋势（“趋势”分析）；（3）与捕捞死亡率相结合，足以危及一个或多个种群未来可持续性的吸鱼/撞鱼死亡率的发生（“种群濒危”分析）。BIC分析利用了在塞勒姆紧邻区域收集的近30年物种存在/缺失数据。趋势分析研究了三个独立数据集，这些数据集记录了过去20年整个河口幼鱼数量的趋势。种群濒危分析使用了两种不同的评估模型来量化吸鱼和撞鱼对易受影响鱼类种群的潜在长期影响。对于其中一个模型，通过对数百种鱼类种群可获得的产卵亲体-补充量数据进行荟萃分析，量化了模型物种的补偿能力。所有三项分析均表明，特拉华河口的鱼类种群和群落是健康的，没有证据显示因塞勒姆而受到不利影响。尽管塞勒姆使用的具体模型和分析并不适用于每个设施，但我们认为，采用回顾性和预测性方法评估多个AEI基准的证据权重法是评估现有设施吸鱼和撞鱼影响的最佳方法。
