An Engineering Marvel Helps Save Salmon on the Snake and Columbia Rivers

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Since being ordered in 1991, the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) and the U.S. Corp of Engineers have been diligent to save the Sock-Eyed Salmon and other species of fish from reaching extinction. Construction of fish slides (a removal spillway) have been a great success. It is less harmful to young salmon than a normal spillway, allowing fish to migrate through the dam gently. A normal spillway subjects smolts (young salmon) to extreme depths. The fish slide is also very helpful to dam operators letting them produce electricity more effectively.

Designed by Jacobs Engineering Group, Incorporated (NYSE:JEC ) (Pasadena, California) in 2002, the first fish slide was installed at the Lower Granite Dam. Since that time, dam operators have seen the health of fish species improve. The 1,200-ton weir cost approximately $12 million to construct. These systems have been installed in two other facilities and are scheduled to be installed in all the remaining five hydro facilities on both rivers over the next six years. The Lower Monumental and McNary Dams are slated for 2007 and Little Goose hydro facility in 2009.

With the slides and numbers of species being reviewed yearly, the debate of whether to breach dams still goes on between environmentalists, scientists, and state and federal government. The BPA has even gone as far as to fund other dam operators in the area with fish rescue efforts using several types of technology to assist in the survival of numerous species of fish. Tanks, special nets, barges, and ladders are being used to lessen the impact on fish species. But during this journey, species continue to be subject to both man-made and natural threats that have nothing to do with the dams themselves. Pollution, water contamination, illegal fishing, even an increase in natural predators take their toll on the fish population yearly as well.

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