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First Batch of Fish Rides New Flume at Little Goose by Staff Lewiston Tribune, March 23, 1990

The first group of young salmon rode a bright new $8 million flume at Little Goose Dam near Starbuck Thursday. The flume will carry young salmon and steelhead around the dam.

The several hundred fish released in the flume Thursday were the first live riders, however. ''From what I understand they went through in real good condition,'' said David Hurson, a corps fishery biologist at Walla Walla.

The test fish are being examined to see if the flume causes their scales to fall off or other injuries. The Little Goose bypass is unique among Snake and Columbia river dams because its flume is open while most dams rely on pressurized pipes to carry the small fish.

The water in the open flume travels more slowly than in the pressurized pipe, Hurson said, and stresses the fish less. Open flume designs had been tested at Lower Granite Dam for two years by University of Idaho researchers.

The first year's operation of the new bypass will be devoted to evaluating its operation.

''We had a few bugs to work out, but you have that with any facility. It appears to be working really well,'' Hurson said.

The fish handling system at Little Goose also includes concrete raceways capable of holding up to 60,000 pounds or roughly 1 million young chinook at a time.

That is twice the capacity of the dam's old fish holding tanks that the new system will replace.

The corps also has expanded its fleet of barges by two to six this spring with the completion of barges built at the Port of Clarkston and launched last month. The two barges cost more than $2 million to build and equip.

The corps will begin running water through Lower Granite Dam's fish bypass next Monday in anticipation of the annual migration of young salmon and steelhead to the sea.

Last year, the corps collected 7.8 million salmon and steelhead at Lower Granite and 3 million at Little Goose.

The migrating fish are expected to begin arriving at the dams sometime in early April, Hurson said.

It loaded all but 1.7 million into trucks or barges to be hauled around the other two Snake River dams and four Columbia River dams. Turbines at the dams are the main killers of the young fish as they travel downstream.

This year, the dams are expected to collect about the same number of fish from the Snake River dams, Hurson said.

Biologists estimate Idaho, Washington and Oregon hatcheries will produce nearly 20 million young salmon and steelhead this year. Another couple of million young fish reared in the wild also will make the journey.