By Joseph Slacian
jslacian@thepaperofwabash.com
STOCKDALE, Ind. – A fish ladder, the first of its kind in the United States, is being installed this week at the Stockdale Dam.
Work on the project began on Monday, Aug. 14, and is expected to continue through at least Thursday.
The prototype fish ladder is designed to allow fish as small as 3 inches to navigate around the dam, according to Manchester University Professor Jerry Sweeten.
Dr. Boyd Kynard, an internationally respected migratory fish biologist, developed the ladder and is on site to help with its installation.
“What fish ladders do is take away the problem of putting a dam in the river does to fish,” he told The Paper of Wabash County. “What dams do to fish is that they segment the population of fish. So now you have populations of fish that live above the dam, and if they move downstream of the dam, which they often do, then they can’t get back up. So you don’t have an integrated population that’s able to go to its wintering areas, its spawning areas, its foraging areas, like they have evolved for the last 12,000 years to do that.”
The problem, he said, may not be readily noticeable to humans.
“We live 70 years,” Kynard said, “and you may find no difference to the population in those 70 years. But take it out 100 years, 200 years, 300 years, what fish ladders will do is restore that conductivity of fish. It will enable them to restore the migration cycles like they’ve evolved.”
The ladder, which is made of painted steel, will be located on land and will be encased in concrete to prevent erosion.
Water will come into the fish ladder through an entrance just south of the dam. It will flow through and come out to the north of the dam.
“The trick of fish passage is to put that entrance downstream of the dam to attract the fish that are coming upstream, to put it in the right space so they will find it,” Kynard said. “If they are migratory, they will be able to move up the ladder and be able to move into the reservoir upstream of the dam.”
The flow of the river helps to entice the fish into the ladder, he explained.
“Migratory fish that want to go upstream are attracted to velocity,” he said. “We did a lot of study of water velocity below the dam, and it’s just perfect for this application.
“At low flow and at moderate flow, which is what this ladder will operate at, this area has a big eddy (current). The water, coming out of the ladder, will provide a very easy to detect velocity for these fish.”
The Stockdale Dam was selected, Kynard said, because many dams along the Eel River are being removed.
“This dam, because of its importance to the Stockdale Mill, was not on a list to be taken down. So, here you are, you’re taking down dams all along the river, except for one dam. Unfortunately, segmentation of population, one dam is all you need. This is to solve that problem of the biology of the river fish in here.”
Kynard said it took about two years for his firm, B.K. Riverfish, to develop the ladder. It is being installed through a $150,000 grant Sweeten received from the Ohio River Basin Habitat Partnership through the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Ron McColley, president of the Stockdale Mill Foundation Board of Directors, was among those from the board watching work at the site Monday morning. He sees it as a plus for both the environment and the Stockdale Mill itself.
“It will bring visitors here,” he said. “They’ll drive in here to see the fish ladder, and maybe they’ll say, ‘Well, we want to go over to the mill.’
“We don’t charge to tour the mill, but we’ll be more than happy to take donations.”