Box Canyon Fish Passage Facility

Box Canyon Fish Passage Facility

Background:

The Box Canyon Hydroelectric Project is owned by the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District (PUD) and was completed in 1956. The Box Canyon Dam is located on the Pend Oreille River, 90 miles north of Spokane, Washington and is a run-of-the-river hydroelectric project that was built near the exit of a narrow channel commonly referred as Box Canyon. Water from the dam feeds four Kaplan Turbines which produce power for Pend Oreille PUD’s customers. As part of the relicensing, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission mandated that the district build and operate a trap and haul upstream fish passage facility at Box Canyon Dam.

ISI designed and fabricated screens that provide fish protection at the water supply to the fish passage facility which provides passage for juvenile, sub-adult, and adult Bull Trout, Westslope Cutthroat Trout and Mountain Whitefish. ISI provided two D83-108EA-F screens, each measuring 83 inches (2.1 m) in diameter and 108 inches (2.7 m) in length and equipped with an electric drive brush cleaning system. Each ISI screen unit is connected to an intake pipe via a 72-inch (1.8 m) flange. The wedge wire screen area per unit is 196 square feet (18.2 m2), resulting in an average approach velocity of less than 0.8 fps (24.4 cm/s) at a maximum flow rate of 300 cfs (193.9 MGD; 30,582 m3/h) for the two screens. The cleaning operations can be manually or automatically controlled by the Main Control Panel provided by ISI.

Benefit of ISI System

ISI's Box Canyon Pend Oreille River screen system includes the following key features and benefits to address the challenging site conditions: The cylindrical screen shape provides a large screen surface area in a small project footprint. The flange mount provides a simple and cost-effective screen mounting system. Access panels allow for the removal of the internal brush and electric drive assembly without removing the screens. The screens provide fish and debris protection at this difficult to access intake minimizing the need for regular diver service.

Owner:

Pend Oreille County

Engineer(s):

McMillen Jacobs

General Contractor:

James W. Fowler Co.

Location:

Pend Oreille River, Ione, WA