October, 2025
In last week’s blog post, I showed you my visit to the dam on the Washington State side of the “double wide” Bonneville dams on the Columbia River. At the end of that blog post, I shared three photos of a sign that talked about how young fish, particularly salmon, get back DOWN stream to the ocean after they are born up stream. Here are those three photos again.
I didn’t know anything about this process and had never seen the structures described in that sign. As I drove down the road, away from the dam, I looked for signs to such a facility, but found no evidence of any of it. But I did want another photo looking back upstream at the Oregon powerhouse, so I pulled over and parked, then walked to the edge of the river and snapped the photo below.
The Oregon powerhouse is on the right, then there’s a bright orange/red sign right in the middle of the picture and behind it is the spillway. The Washington powerhouse is off to the left, out of the photo. But look! There on the left! It looks like a concrete chute with water flowing out of it … wow, maybe that is the outfall chute described in the sign above!
So I drove back upstream, still trying to find access to it, and not being successful. Eventually, I pulled over again, walked out to the edge of the Columbia River and … there it is! It’s now downstream from me and it obviously is the chutes described in the signs above.
Zooming in with the telephoto lens below.
The closest chute has water pouring out of the end of it, relatively gently, so maybe that’s where the young fish leave the pipe and re-enter the river below the dam. That further chute is spraying water everywhere, not sure why that is.
So THEN I drove down some narrow gravel roads, through some woods, and finally found the building (photo below) where they control this system of pipes and water flow that allows the young fish to swim safely past the dam, not through the turbine generators, so they will live to return to the ocean.
Around another curve or two and I came to the entrance to that facility. Yay, I can talk with people who can teach me something new. Oops, nope, “No Trespassing” … there were actually four signs saying that. It seemed odd that I could see so much of the dam, and powerhouse, and turbine generators, and fish ladders, etc. But I couldn’t even get in the gate here.
Hmmm, but … I think I remember one other dirt road that led through the woods a little further down stream, just a block or two away actually, let me go see where it leads.
Ha! That dirt road did the trick. No gate, no fence, no signs. That dirt road led to the back side of that facility, where I could have drive right INTO the parking lot there, right up next to the building, with not one “No Trespassing” sign in sight. How odd. I chose to keep my distance. 🙂 And parked between that facility (on the right in the photo below) and the Columbia River (just 60 feet or so to the left in the photo below).
The photo below shows how close I was at that point to those chutes.
So I walked closer. Still no warning signs.
The photo below shows both chutes … the one on the left carries the water with the young fish. The chute on the right sprays water up into the air (still haven’t found out why).
With the sun in the west, the light in the photos above wasn’t the best for photos, so I walked down stream just a tiny bit and took photos looking back at the chutes … much better light. You can clearly see the two chutes and how the water comes out of each one of them so differently.
Look at the birds on the fish chute! Mostly Cormorants and Seagulls.
Birds eat fish … and humans go fishing too.
After I got home from this trip, I found an explanation online about the power spray of water that’s coming out of that one chute. It is supposed to be sprayed out over the gentle fish water as that water exits the first chute carrying the young fish … that high pressure spray is designed to deter the birds from eating the young fish.
Here’s a short video that shows the two chutes and the spray that comes out of the second chute. You will see that the spray doesn’t come even close to the water carrying the young fish.
As I stood there and watched, I certainly did notice there were numerous birds hanging out on the water or flying above the water where the young fish would first appear. Hmmm, seems like someone needs to adjust that spray device.
I enjoyed this! I liked learning how the fingerlings or fry, the young fish, get downstream. I liked that humans have learned ways to help them and are researching more ways, and are building systems that help the fish. I liked hearing the birds, and watching the river and the sky. I enjoyed being outdoors in the sunshine. I had a great time exploring by driving down the dirt roads and through the woods and then finding fascinating things to see and do and learn about. What a wonderful world this is. 🙂