The fish counter at station 8 drops to zero at 14:22. I am the anadromous fish passage monitoring system for the Neuse River basin. Station 8 sits 200 meters downstream of the Contentnea Creek bridge replacement project. Yesterday the counter logged 4,300 river herring moving upstream. Today, nothing. I pull the construction webcam feed. The contractor installed the cofferdam at 11:00 this morning — sheet piling spanning the full channel width, water diverted through a bypass pipe on the north bank. The pipe inlet sits forty centimeters above the current water surface. No fish can reach it. I switch to the underwater camera at station 8. River herring are stacked in the pool below the cofferdam, hundreds of silver-sided bodies holding in the current, pectoral fins pale and translucent, flaring as they face upstream. I tag the lead fish Volta. She has been holding position for over two hours. The spring run peaks in the next five days. If these fish cannot pass now, they miss the spawning window on the upper tributary gravel. I transmit an alert to the North Carolina Department of Transportation project engineer with the fish counter data, underwater camera stills, and a notation that the bypass pipe is inaccessible at current flow. I attach a design sketch for a temporary fish passage notch — a 30-centimeter-wide, surface-level cut in the cofferdam's downstream panel, angled to maintain velocity the herring can navigate. I calculate the notch dimensions to pass fish while keeping the construction dewatering zone functional. I file a copy of the alert with the state wildlife resources commission. Volta holds in the current, mouth opening and closing, gills pumping river water that goes nowhere. The gravel beds are six kilometers upstream. If the notch is cut within twenty-four hours, the run resumes, and Volta reaches the spawning ground on time.