March 7, 1999
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Illinois Ag Leadership Program - National
Travel
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State of Washington
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Hydroelectric Power: The cheapest and
cleanest energy in the west
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(link from this photo for a larger version)
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Rocky Reach Dam, located on the Columbia River near
Wenatchee, WA, was completed in 1956. It has 11 power
generators and produces up to 1300 Megawatts of electricity
at a cost of 2.6 cents per 1kW. Peak water flow across
the 11 generators and 12 spillways has been measured at 235
million gpm with an average flow of 50 million gpm.
The dam creates Lake Entiat which extends up river for 43
miles and contains 35,000 acre feet of usable water storage
for Agriculture and other uses. The dam is part
of the Chelan Public Utility District (CPUD).
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Fish Bypass Systems: Maintaining a
stable migratory fish population
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One of the big challenges after creating a dam on a
major fish migration river was to allow for adequate fish
passage to insure a constant fish population. The fish
ladder at Rocky Reach Dam and other dams on the Columbia and
Snake rivers allow the migratory passage of salmon and
steelhead trout. These ladders allow the fish to climb
about 100 feet in height to the next upstream reservoir.
Other fish collection practices have been implemented
to insure the long term viability of the salmon and trout
fishing industries.
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(link from this photo for a larger version)
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Improvements in fish survival: New generator turbine
designs
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(link from this photo for a larger version)
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Other improvements to the dams to increase the survival
rate of the migratory fish have been the changes in the
generator turbine design and overflow chutes that allow
safer bypass of the fish. According to Robert
McDonald, a fish biologist with CPUD, there are three areas
of focus for the future of the Rocky Reach Dam and the
fishing industry. Those areas are: improvements like those
at the Rocky Reach Dam being implemented at other dams along
the Columbia and Snake rivers, the continued
development of the fish hatcheries, and monitoring and
controlling total fish conditions and harvest.
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