This is huge and may remove one of the major arguments for not building Auburn Dam!
Article from KOMO News.
An excerpt.
SEATTLE — A Seattle company called Whooshh Innovations (link to their website, https://www.whooshh.com/ ) has developed a creative way for fish to swim over hydroelectric dams. This product creates a pressure difference around the salmon, sucking the fish up a long tube and releasing it at the top of the dam.
“We do introduce a little bit of water to keep them moist and keep their gills moist and all those kinds of things for the few seconds it takes them to get through the system,” said Mike Dearan, Whooshh’s chief engineer.
The Whooshh system also takes pictures of salmon and sorts the fish as they travel, dividing up wild and hatchery fish. If there was a constant stream of fish, 86,000 salmon could move through just one of these Whooshh systems every day.
“Every salmon goes on their migratory journey. They’re carrying thousands of eggs in their belly,” said Mike Messina, the Director of Market Development for the company.
He says fish ladders are ineffective, outdated and stressful for salmon. That’s why Whooshh started brainstorming another solution several years ago.
This Whooshh technology is 80% less expensive than your traditional fish ladders. It could also save taxpayers $24 million a year if implemented at eight dams along the Columbia River.
Retrieved July 17, 2019 from https://komonews.com/news/local/new-technology-could-help-salmon-swim-over-hydroelectric-dams
