Pile Driving at the New Bridge at Tappan Zee: Potential Environmental Impacts.

A new bridge will be constructed to replace the aging Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River in New York. Construction will potentially result in hydroacoustic impacts to the local fish fauna. As a consequence, a substantial environmental impact analysis had to be conducted to obtain construction permits.

Methods for Predicting Potential Impacts of Pile-Driving Noise on Endangered Sturgeon During Bridge Construction.

The potential impacts of pile-driving noise on Hudson River sturgeon during construction of the New NY Bridge were predicted. Abundance data for shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon derived from fisheries sampling were combined with data about the spatial extent of pile-driving noise. This approach was used to calculate the number of sturgeon that could occur within sound level isopleths exceeding peak and cumulative noise criteria used by the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine the incidental take of sturgeon.

Avoidance of Pile-Driving Noise by Hudson River Sturgeon During Construction of the New NY Bridge at Tappan Zee.

Sturgeon movements were monitored during a pile-driving operation. Fewer sturgeon were detected during pile driving and remained for a shorter time than during silent control periods. Moreover, the short time spent by sturgeon near pile driving suggests that they were unlikely to have reached the criterion of 187 dB re 1 μPa(2)·s cumulative sound exposure level.

A Change in the Use of Regulatory Criteria for Assessing Potential Impacts of Sound on Fishes.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) currently uses interim criteria developed on the US West Coast to assess the potential onset of peak and cumulative effects of noise on fishes. Analyses performed for this project provided adequate support for the NMFS to use the peak criterion (i.e.

Risk of predation reflects variation in the reproductive strategy of a dominant forage fish in mangrove tidal tributaries.

The role of predators in shaping prey life histories is a central theme in the ecological literature. However, the association between degree of predation risk and prey reproductive strategies has not been clearly established. We examined reproduction in the sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna) from small tidal tributaries in a subtropical estuary.