Pallid Sturgeon/ Yellowstone Intake Dam

[RobG]

ok, I'll ask... What is that stack coming out of that building?

The channel becoming the new river bed seems like a pretty dang good reason to avoid it and use pumps instead. Leave it to the corps.

 

[JCS]

Here are a couple of other related photos. The first pic is of the old headgates. These are no longer used. The next picture is of the new headgate. As you can see, the new one is lower than the old one. I have seen the ice HIGHER than it shows in this years picture. I wonder what would have happened if the ice was higher this year against the new headgate.


The purpose of the new headgate is not to let any fish into the irrigation canal.

 

[JCS]

ok, I'll ask... What is that stack coming out of that building?

The channel becoming the new river bed seems like a pretty dang good reason to avoid it and use pumps instead. Leave it to the corps.

That is a pipe from a steam engine that ran the old trolley car across the river to place more rock in the diversion dam. That was told to me by a rather older looking gentleman.


Here is a picture so you have a better idea.

 

[double_a85]

JCS---Thanks for sharing those pictures. I had heard about the bad ice flows and wondered what they actually looked like.

Now if ya had a picture off the headgate during the super low flows of the early 2000's as a comparison... Would be an amazing difference between the high and low water.

 

[JCS]

JCS---Thanks for sharing those pictures. I had heard about the bad ice flows and wondered what they actually looked like.

Now if ya had a picture off the headgate during the super low flows of the early 2000's as a comparison... Would be an amazing difference between the high and low water.

I'm sure I have a picture somewhere. I have to get my scanner ready.

 

[mtlion]

Hey guys, been out in the field and just saw this thread. I am getting ready to head out for the day but have the next 2 days off so will try to contribute soon. My work was with the sturgeon upstream of Fort Peck, and we documented some very lengthy spawning migrations for shovelnose there. Unfortunately the adult pallid sturgeon population there is tanking and will be non-existent in the next few years so we had a limited number of adults tagged, but I do have some info there...I also have some pics I could post up, I'll try to get to it tomorrow. Here is a little light reading on the subject for those interested, pertains to shovelnose but not pallids:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jai.12336/pdf

 

[RobG]

1.5 years later... there has been some action on this topic and today is the last day to comment.

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/...na-TU.html?soid=1104524640497&aid=swBSpYy6a94

And we are still waiting for you mtlion

 

[theat]

Thanks RobG for bringing this back up. Just got my comments submitted in the nick of time.

 

[RobG]

Biologists don't think the dam with a bypass will work. The article doesn't mention it, but I think the preferred solution is to pump the water. I still don't understand why this can't be done. http://missoulian.com/news/state-an...cle_db7d0037-086b-5809-889a-be5ab88b3ac7.html

A friend who testified in Billings said he felt threatened by the ag crowd, who were pretty fired up. They feel this is a conspiracy against them. That seems totally irrational as I don't see how it affects them. It's fed money, isn't it?

 

[Poke 'Em]

The concern is pump reliability. The water never stops flowing if you don't have a pump to break down.

Well, the real concern is the "gubment shouldn't be telling me what to do" mentality.

 

[golfer]

Was anything ever said about the future of paddlefish by removing this damn at these meetings

 

[Ben Lamb]

Biologists don't think the dam with a bypass will work. The article doesn't mention it, but I think the preferred solution is to pump the water. I still don't understand why this can't be done. http://missoulian.com/news/state-an...cle_db7d0037-086b-5809-889a-be5ab88b3ac7.html

A friend who testified in Billings said he felt threatened by the ag crowd, who were pretty fired up. They feel this is a conspiracy against them. That seems totally irrational as I don't see how it affects them. It's fed money, isn't it?

Water is a finite resource. It's even more important now with climate change. Added to that is the increased fear spread by certain politicos and their pr machine and it's easy to see why some folks get spun up.

 

[RobG]

Water is a finite resource. It's even more important now with climate change. Added to that is the increased fear spread by certain politicos and their pr machine and it's easy to see why some folks get spun up.

Yeah, but nobody is talking about taking their water away, only changing the method of delivery.

 

[Nemont]

Gravity provides the power to run that water down the ditches now. Pumps use a lot of power and the costs of that goes to the irrigators.

 

[Schism]

Yeah, but nobody is talking about taking their water away, only changing the method of delivery.

While that is true, I have irrigated beets, beans, etc using the canal system the starts 45-ish miles upstream (Fallon) of the Intake diversion. More than once while I was there, pump failures lead to rationing of water by irrigators and subsequent loss in crop yields. I believe this to be one of the fears of those who receive their irrigation water thru the use of the Intake diversion dam.

 

[RobG]

Thanks - I see where you are coming from.

 

[antlerradar]

Our power bill for irrigation runs from 7 to 10 thousand a month and I am pumping just a fraction of the water that intake would need to pump. Intake's power bill would be enormous plus there is maintenance and repairs on the pumps. The last time I had a pump rebuilt it was three thousand.
If the power goes out for even an hour it would cost the farmers on that irrigation project thousands. It costs me money every time the power blinks and it is not like you can hook up a generator and be cost effective

 

[RobG]

The estimate I heard several years ago was $315,000 per year. I don't know how many people this canal serves, nor what the peak power requirements are to have backup.