Renovations At Fish Hatchery In Orleans Are Completed In Time For Gillnetting
Renovations At Fish Hatchery In Orleans Are Completed In Time For Gillnetting
April 04, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Orleans)– Some renovations at the fish hatchery in Orleans are pretty much completed now, just in time for gillnetting season. Kim Hawkins oversees operations at the facility. She tells KUOO news the project had been ongoing since last summer, adding that most of the work was centered around the installation of a new water system for the incubation process…
“We always did treat our water and our fish as we would transfer them from our location, but we don’t have filtration coming from the lake to run our system. So with the city water we don’t have to worry about our lines getting plugged with zebra mussels, algae, things like that as we hatch these fish. So it’s two fold. One, we don’t have to worry about clogging and then when we are done with our product and we transfer to other locations we don’t have to treatments on and things of that nature, because it is nice clean water heading out of our system.”
As a result, Hawkins says visitors at the fish hatchery are noticing some changes…
“Because it is a clean water source we have to protect it, so you used to be able to see and walk up close and see the eggs in the incubation system, now we actually have a wall and some big viewing windows. You’ll be able to see, watch the process, go look at our big fish in the raceways, you just won’t be able to go up and touch the jars with the eggs and things of that nature. So that is our biggest inside renovation. We do have a few renovations that happened out in the lake with our intake and then at our pond where we gather the water before we pump it into the system from the lake but yeah, the biggest one people will notice will be incubation system when they come visit us.”
Hawkins says they’re excited the fish hatchery will once again be open to the public during the gillnetting operations, after having been closed the past two years. She says some test nets may be put out the latter part of this week, with the main gillnetting operations following that depending upon the water temperature.
