Sean C. Morgan
A contractor is moving dirt at Wiley Creek Park below Foster Dam in preparation for the construction of a new $18.6 million fish transfer facility.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held an open house at Foster School on Wednesday night, Nov. 14, to provide information about the project to Sweet Home-area residents.
Right now, the contractor, the Natt McDougall Company of Tualatin, is mobilizing, planning and completing pre-construction work, said Corps Project Engineer Albert Wright. Fencing is up, and a single excavator has been going over the site. Wright expects “multiple excavations” to be under way by the first week of December, with dump trucks traveling to and from the site on the east end of the park.
The Corps awarded the contract on Aug. 15, Wright said. It is scheduled for completion on Feb. 28, 2014. After testing, it is expected to open on April 1, 2014.
The project is based on a biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service in July 2008, said Corps Project Manager Christine Budai. The opinion recommended “a number of reasonable and prudent alternatives” for the Corps and the Environmental Protection Agency to help fish get past the dam to spawn in streams up the river.
The project addresses two South Santiam River species listed under the Endangered Species Act, spring Chinook and winter steelhead, Budai said. Among them is upgrading fish facilities to decrease stress on adult fish traveling upstream to spawn.
The goal is to reduce the factors leading to pre-spawn mortality, Budai said. A fish friendly facility to get them over the dam should help.
The fish will travel up the existing fish ladder, then over a structure that will cross in front of the powerhouse and carry fish west to the park, where they will wind up in short- and long-term holding ponds and a sorting area, Budai said. The fish can be redirected to the river or taken down a flume to a waiting biologist.
The biologist will likely handle the fish briefly, sorting native fish to a holding pond for transportation upstream and hatchery fish to a holding pond for transportation to the South Santiam Fish Hatchery on the other side of the river.
“It minimizes the amount of handling,” Budai said, but there will probably be some handling. “The ones that go to the sorting area have to be sorted.”
If the biologist is quick enough, the fish can be sorted through a series of gates without handling them at all, Budai said.
From the holding ponds, fish will be placed in hoppers that will be set on top of trucks already carrying water, she said. Then they will be released into the truck.
In recent years, the fish are lifted in a hopper inside the dam where they are sorted by hand and slipped down tubes into waiting trucks. In the past, they were lifted inside the dam to Foster Dam Road and sorted.
The funding for the project comes from the Columbia River Fish Mitigation Fund, Corps-appropriated dollars, which is used to fund construction projects.
A similar project is under way in the North Santiam River, about four miles west of Big Cliff Dam. It is scheduled for completion in March and expected to be operational in April.