Removing a Local Landscape Icon

The New Year is bringing big changes to the landscape at Dworshak Fish Hatchery. Our hatchery access bridge is currently being removed, piece by piece and will be replaced by an at-grade crossing. 

The bridge was built in 1968 and crosses over railroad tracks that run between the hatchery and Hwy 7. In 2011, the weight capacity for the bridge was downgraded from 88,000 pounds to 76,000 pounds. 

Because of the weight restriction we could no longer carry a fully loaded fish truck over the bridge. In order to truck our steelhead smolts we had to reduce the load by 1/3, de-water the truck to cross the bridge, and re-water the truck after crossing the bridge. This tripled the number of outplanting trips and extended our release time by about 10 days. The de-watering and re-watering processes also put the fish under additional stress. 

We were also no longer able to accept feed deliveries onto the Hatchery. Feed trucks had to off load in our visitor lot and hatchery staff would then bring pallets of feed over the bridge with our boom truck and forklifts. 

The Army Corps of Engineers opted to put in an at-grade crossing rather than rebuild the bridge. The cost of installation and maintenance of the crossing will be far less than retrofitting and maintaining the old bridge.

Bridge demolition should be complete by January 18 and we will get back to business as usual.

Text and Photos by Angela Feldmann
Video by Adam Izbicki

The Weather Outside Was Frightful!

There is an unwritten law that things will break during terrible weather, when you are short staffed, or on a Friday at 3:25.

Such was the case last Saturday when our weekend crew, Jeff and Nate, arrived to six inches of heavy snow. Now six inches of snow really doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but when you have 4 acres of overhead bird netting that needs to be shaken and far more snow to plow- in addition to taking care of 6 million fish- well, let’s just say the troops were called in. Good thing too. The problems didn’t end there.

OH NO!

Rob and Joe arrived and started on the snow while Jeff and Nate got on with their fish culture duties. While feeding the Chinook, Nate noticed the flow had almost stopped in one of the raceways. It was lucky raceway 13. Coincidence? I don’t think so….

This is not what you want to see...

This IS what you want to see

The flow had dropped from the usual 750 gpm (gallons per minute) to mere 100 gpm. Fortunately, the fish were doing okay. It was suspected that some of our water filtering media had broken up and gotten jammed in the valve. Usually you can break this media loose by opening and closing the valve. But this time that didn’t work.

The guys were able to install a backup pump to supply water from the adjacent raceway, pumping water from A14 to supplement the flow in A13. Both raceways had around 350 gpm each. Because of the low flows, both of these raceways off feed for the weekend. We would have to wait until Monday to take off the vacuum degasser and clear the blockage.

 

Help is on the way!

Alright, I know most of you can't sleep without knowing what happened on lucky raceway 13. The great news is that we got the valve cleared! It took some wrestling by our fantastic maintenance guys, Terry and Adam, to get the de-gasser off, but once that was removed, the plugged Koch rings were easy to pull out.

The culprits, plastic filter media, called Koch rings.

Surprisingly, there were only parts and pieces from about 3 Koch rings, which goes to show that it doesn't take much of a blockage to significantly restrict flows. Of course, a fair amount of moss also came out, which was likely packing the remaining space. 

Great Work Team Dworshak!

Text by Angela Feldmann and Nate Wiese

Photos by Nate Wiese

The next generation of Clearwater Chinook

The next generation of Chinook are on their way!!!!

In August we spawned adult Chinook. Their progeny have been quietly incubating in the dark, cold heath stacks here at Dworshak Fish Hatchery. Dark? Cold? I know, it doesn't sound all that pleasant, but if you are a salmon egg a nice 37 degree heath tray is a wonderful place to call home. You have oxygen rich water flowing around you at just the right volume, light is limited so eggs can develop properly, and there are NO PREDATORS! Easy living.

Our egg sorters count and separate live and dead eggs. 

After our initial egg counting, called enumeration, we hand pick any dead eggs from the incubation trays. This job is labor intensive, but it keeps fungus growth down and our eggs and rearing environment healthy. In a few short years, these tiny embryos will grow to be 10-20 pound adults.

Jeff is removing dead eggs from a heath tray. There are 5000 eggs in each tray! This year we have about 2.15 million Chinook eggs in incubation at Dworshak. The eggs are incubated in 37 degree water (F). It is chilly in the incubation room!

A tray full of healthy eggs is a beautiful sight!!!

Twins! The center egg has two embryos inside. They are probably conjoined at the yolk sack, and unfortunately they will not survive. The egg on the left is a healthy embryo. The egg on the right is an embryo that is not forming correctly; notice how tiny the eye spots are. The top egg is dead.



With good rearing and a little luck most of these tiny eggs will be released as smolts in the spring of 2015. After that they will have to fend for themselves, but some, hopefully many, will return as adults and we will start the process again. 

Photos and Text by Angela Feldmann

Dworshak Media Project: Making Dworshak "Greener"

At Dworshak Fisheries Complex  We Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

I was walking around the facility the other day and thinking about how far Dworshak National Fisheries Complex has come in 6 years with regard to improving our environmental footprint.  In 2007 we kicked our Environmental Management Systems program into high gear.  Prior to that time we had been recycling toner cartridges from our printers, aluminum, and paper.  We had even started recycling our plastic soda and water bottles.  It was a good start!

Recently, however, we’ve had the opportunity to kick our efforts to a new level.  Probably the biggest recycling effort this facility has ever experienced occurred a few weeks ago.  Did you notice the big black pile of plastic “stuff” as you drove past us?  It was clearly visible from Riverside/Hwy 12 and several attentive people asked about it. Well, here’s the story!

A plastic Koch ring used for water treatment, USFWS

The big black “stuff” was actually plastic media called Koch rings (pronounced Coke). This media was used in reconditioning the water we used to raise fish. When the facility was constructed in 1969, it operated on a water reuse system.  In recent years the staff at Dworshak has been working with the Army Corps of Engineers to update the water treatment system.  Now the media is no longer needed.  It took 6 years before we were able to find a way to remove it AND recycle the plastic. Let me tell you it was no easy feat!

Roto-Rooter used a huge vacuum truck to the suck the media out of the filter beds. The hoses they used, and the men working on the project took a beating, but they accomplished the task in little over one month!

Roto-Rooter trucking media from filter beds, USFWS

Lewis Clark Recyclers, Inc. (LCRI) set up a cardboard bunker area for Roto-Rooter to dump the media in. When the bunker area was full, they brought in a roll-off truck with two containers to transport approximately 60 to 80 yards - think football field - of material each trip.  All the material was loaded into the container using a front-end loader.  Then the media was taken to Lewiston.  Another containment bunker was constructed around a large baler.  The media was then dumped out of the transport container into the baler.

Media staging and loading at Dworshak Fish Hatchery, USFWS

Koch rings bailed and ready to go! LCRI

By this time the material had been handled at least twice and it was becoming brittle, so once it was on the conveyor it was in smaller pieces which made baling difficult.  A typical bale must have a minimum of 5 wires holding it together, this product had between 10 and 15 bands holding it together.

After the first load shipped and was received by Denton Plastics in Portland, Oregon. The processor asked for the bales to be shrink wrapped so they could unload it from the truck more efficiently. It must have been a messy job without the shrink wrap!! 

LCRI shipped 6 loads of media to Portland, that’s little more than 200 bales and a total weight of approximately 200,000 pounds!

A load of bailed and wrapped Koch rings, LCRI

Workers at Denton Plastics ground up the material.

Ground up Koch rings, Denton Plastics

Using an extrusion process, it was mixed with a Polypropylene material and formed into little plastic pellets.

Pellets produces by Denton Plastics

The little pellets will now be sold and made into new products, such as flower pots.

I think it’s a pretty cool story.  It amazes me how hard work, creativity, and technology can turn a huge pile of one hatchery’s   “trash” into a gardener’s treasure!

By Shanna Saldecke (LCRI), Eric Fischer (Denton Plastics), Jill Olson (FWS), and Angela Feldmann (FWS)