The long-term goal of this project is to get a sustainable run of wild Spring Chinook established above Cougar Dam.
Behind Cougar Dam on the reservoir is a new project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It’s a Portable Floating Fish Collector, or PFFC. It's about the size of a tennis court. It's moored in place, but can be moved around the body of water to find the sweet spot. After a two-year trial run, it will be disassembled, loaded onto trucks and taken to either Lookout Point or Detroit Reservoir.
Greg Taylor: "My name is Greg Taylor, I'm a fish biologist for the Corps of Engineers at the Willamette Valley project. We operate a number of fish facilities at the dams and then we've got this brand new facility that we're bringing on line here at Cougar Reservoir.
The long-term goal of this project is to get a sustainable run of wild Spring Chinook established above Cougar Dam. The Portable Floating Fish Collector that we're working with today captures juvenile fish in the reservoir so that we can transport them safely downstream.
Shortly after the dam went in place, they were evaluating whether they could establish a run of fish above the dam and it didn't work for a number of reasons. We had temperature issues associated with the dam. So the trap and haul and the downstream passage systems that we had just didn't work so at that time they made a decision to produce hatchery fish in mitigation for the old system that was in place. We've got fish listed on the Endangered Species Act. There's an emphasis on wild fish and wild fish production and so this project is really trying to move towards getting those wild fish reestablished above the dam.
It's sort of a stationary fish vacuum. We've got water being pulled into the throat and then fish go over this velocity barrier and then get caught in a little trap down there and then we'll be able to bring the fish up and then we process them and transport them downstream.
Reporter: "And then how would they get back up when they're migrating?"
Taylor: "Yeah, when they're adults, they'll come to the base of the dam again. And then we have an adult fish collection facility down there where they're processed and then we load them on to trucks and transport them and release them at the head of the reservoir."
Reporter: "So this has been fishing for about a week or so. How many fish have you collected?"
Taylor: "We're catching small numbers of fish so far. We've been averaging between five and ten juvenile fish a day. This is a prototype, it's a much smaller version of what might be a permanent feature down the road so it's kind of experimental in nature. But it's good that it's catching fish and we're starting to learn a lot about how the fish are interacting with the reservoir and our ability to actually catch them."
Andrew Janos: "Alright, coming up. Yeah, he's still swimming around. Oh, it's not even a salmon. It's a different species."
Taylor: "What is it, a Dace?"
Janos: "Yeah, it's a little Dace. A different species. D-A-C-E."
Reporter: "And how big are they? Do you have some here on site?"
Taylor: "Yeah, we have some fish on site. Right now we have two sizes, classes. Fish that just entered the reservoir in the last month or so that are very small, about two inches in length. And then fish that have been here for about a year, that are larger, about six or seven inches in length.
So we have a number of hydrophones that are around the PFFC that are collecting data on tagged fish and what their 3-D position in the reservoir is and how it relates to the collector, and our intake tower and other locations around the reservoir. So we're trying to learn about the behavior of the fish, how they're interacting with this feature. Are they near it and maybe not liking it for some reason? Are they over by the intake tower where there's more flow? So there's lots of different questions that we're trying to answer with these tagged fish and hydrophones help us."
Reporter: "You said this is a prototype. So this type of system isn't quite used anywhere else or some version of it?"
Taylor: "There are versions of this floating surface collector around the Pacific Northwest. This is a smaller version of some of the others that are out there.
This reservoir has some unique challenges. Our flood damage reduction mission, we fluctuate this reservoir 170 feet annually to capture flood waters. That's more than anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest where people are trying to collect juvenile fish. So we're trying to learn as much as we can about this unique site and how the fish are going to interact with this site before we put a larger scale version of this same collector out here."
Reporter: "How long will that take? A year? Two years?"
Taylor: "Yeah, we're planning to operate this at this site for at least two years. After we get the numbers back and do some evaluation, there will be a decision made in the future about what gets put here permanently."
Andrew Janos: "My name is Andrew Janos and I'm a fisheries biologist for the Army Corps of Engineers, Willamette Valley Project. These fish were born at the head of the reservoir in the Upper South Fork McKenzie. And so they migrated roughly 7 miles through the reservoir and were caught in the PFFC in the last day. And today after we give you the tour, we'll transport them downstream, safely on their way so they can head down to the main stem of the McKenzie, down the Willamette to the Columbia and then the Pacific Ocean.
In this bucket here is a Chinook that was actually born last year and this is a one-year old fish. Because we'll expect migrating fish and other species of salmonides in the reservoir to be caught in the collector year round."
Reporter: "What would you get in the winter?"
Janos: "Well in the fall and winter you'd also get some migrating Chinook as well. And there's also Rainbow Trout, Cutthroat Trout, Bull Trout. We've got some Speckled Dace in here as well."
Reporter: "So with the trout, will you do anything differently with them?"
Janos: "So we've got a different protocol as far as trout for migratory fish – salmon, bull trout – there's a whole matrix we have that we've worked out with the local biologists to kind of determine the fate of where the fish are going. Um, but as far as resident fish, trout, they'd go back to the head of the reservoir."