THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606240050
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 88 lines
James F. Willenbrink, looking like a proud new father in the delivery room, stood on the spillway between Lake Pembroke and the western branch of the Lynnhaven River.
Several days last week, Willenbrink watched thousands of tiny gizzard shad schooling in the lake's waters. The fish were born this spring because Willenbrink masterminded a fish passageway to allow parent fish to negotiate a steep spillway from the saltwater creek to the freshwater lake to spawn.
``It's sort of like they are my babies,'' Willenbrink said.
Known as anadromous fish, gizzard shad traditionally live in salt water but migrate to fresh water to lay their eggs. In past springs, Willenbrink and other Pembroke Meadows residents had noticed the shad beating themselves to death on the concrete spillway and rock buttress as they instinctively tried to reach the lake's fresh water.
This spring it was different.
In March, the rocky abutment below the sluice was given a gentler slope so the fish could make their way up the rocks. Then the fish were able to negotiate the sluice over the spillway because concrete parking strips were laid at angles to slow the rushing water and create resting pools.
``They flipped up the dam and they'd rest,'' Willenbrink said, ``and then they'd flip some more.''
Now three months later, Willenbrink has seen the results of his efforts: big schools of the shiny young fish, only an inch or two long, congregating along the spillway and finning their way over the dam.
``It was quite an exhilarating sight, for me anyway,'' Willenbrink said. ``It proves it's a success.''
Construction of the fish passageway, or ladder, was initiated by Willenbrink, chairman of the Lake Pembroke Committee, and neighborhood volunteers. They were assisted by city Agriculture Director Louis Cullipher and Mitchell Norman, a scientist with the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
``This is a prototype,'' Willenbrink said, ``of what can be done with a few resources.''
Robert D. Brumbaugh, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation who went out to see the young fish this week, was impressed with Willenbrink's leadership and interest.
``It's an example of a private citizen taking steps to correct a problem when he saw it,'' Brumbaugh said. ``That's something the foundation is embracing. More than ever, we need to get citizens in all of the watershed to take care of their own back yard.''
Several ponds similar to Lake Pembroke in the Lynnhaven watershed, many of them old farm ponds, would lend themselves to fish passageways, Cullipher noted. However, spillways at some ponds are constructed differently and would require a more complicated ladder structure to allow the shad to make their way from salt to fresh water.
Even though gizzard shad are considered inedible and are not the historically important American shad whose roe is a delicacy, the fish are nonetheless an important food for other fish, Brumbaugh said. He noted that the young shad had plenty of microscopic plankton in the lake on which to feast. A healthy abundance of young fish dining on plankton can reduce the chance of a big plankton bloom and fish kill this summer in Lake Pembroke. ILLUSTRATION: SURROGATE DAD
MORT FRYMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
James F. Willenbrink led the effort to improve a spillway between
Lake Pembroke and the Lynnhaven River.
MORT FRYMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
James F. Willenbrink's ``babies,'' scooped from the lake near his
home, are alive today because he and his Pembroke Meadows neighbors
constructed a ladder to make their births possible.
James F. Willenbrink, chairman of the Lake Pembroke Committee,
initiated the ladder project. by CNB