Juvenile Fish Barge on the Columbia River
by Charles Robinson
Title
Juvenile Fish Barge on the Columbia River
Artist
Charles Robinson
Medium
Photograph - Landscape Photograph
Description
Juvenile Steelhead and Salmon smolts are given a free ride on a juvenile fish barge provided by the Army Corps of Engineering during their trip down the Columbia River.The fish are collected at each of the dams on the Snake River and the Columbia River and placed in special holding tanks on the barge. This photograph of the barge was taken from the Chamberlin Lake Safety Rest Area located west of Lyle, Washington. It really puts into perspective the size of the cliffs Ice Age Flood cliffs. You can see the basalt cliffs of the the Ice Age Flood across the river in the vicinity of Rowena, Oregon.
In the late 1970s, poor adult returns of salmon and steelhead prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (from hereafter referred to as “the Corps”) to develop a fourth method of passing large numbers of juvenile fish past the Snake and Columbia River dams: barging. Initially, two barges were available to transport juvenile fish, but gradually more barges were added, and by 1981, the barging program had the ability to barge large numbers of fish on a daily basis. Today, between 15 and 22 million smolts are collected from the juvenile bypass systems at Lower Granite, Little Goose, and Lower Monumental dams and placed in one of eight available barges. Barging typically occurs from late April through July, and transports smolts through the hydropower system until they are eventually released below Bonneville Dam. Collection and transportation, known as the Juvenile Transport Program, is a considerable collaborative effort by the Corps with private, federal, and state agencies. Each barging trip lasts two days and covers nearly 300 river miles, but is ultimately faster than the migration for fish that must pass through the dams on their own power.
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February 15th, 2023
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