A trip to the fish elevator

[asakiyume]

Behold the powerful falls at the Holyoke dam. Holyoke Gas and Electric generates power here.

Watch on YouTube

This dam is a barrier to fish that need to get upstream to spawn. There have been various means of solving this problem, but at present it's a literal elevator, a huge mechanism powered by giant turbines and with great chains that lift boxes of water, packed with fish, up above the falls. Yesterday Wakanomori and I went to see it--a marvelous experience!

It has very cute signposts:


In the informational room, there's a diagram that shows how the elevator works. You can see the giant turbines:



And a tally of how many fish have been lifted: yesterday was a record for American shad. (In the colonial days, they used to say that when the shad were running, you could walk across the Connecticut river on their backs.)




Wakanomori asked if the fish counters were volunteers, and the very friendly docent, who was a retired history teacher, explained that no: they were students from the local community college, usually in an environmental course, who are hired to do it. This guy knew everything; it was great.

The room housing the turbines (or, I should say, the space above the turbines) would make a good setting for a James Bond movie. That big circle on the floor is right above one of the turbines. The catwalk above this space had photos from the 1880s about the creation of the dam.



Then we went out and saw the actual elevators (there are two) lifting the fish. This link is to a very brief (1.05 minute), noisy video of the elevator coming up.

See the spiderweb by the chain? What a great contrast. Or complement. Two kinds of strength.



Then we hurried over to the viewing windows to see all the lifted fish. It was a blast! Those long wormy things are sea lampreys, not, as I wrongly guessed, eels, though eels do get lifted too.

Watch on YouTube

Watching the fish:



Meanwhile, downstream, a shad fishing derby was going on. We went and talked to some of the people fishing, and in the 15 or so minutes we were there, they caught about four fish. It was remarkable.



One old guy told me that shad are very, very bony, but if you bake them in vinegar, the vinegar dissolves the bones! He said you could learn anything you needed to know about fishing for shad just by watching for a few minutes, then showed me the person casting, catching, reeling in. They don't use bait, he said, because the shad aren't interested in eating--they're coming up just to spawn. He said they attack the bare hook out of aggressiveness. Because it was a fishing derby, and you win a prize for the heaviest fish, some people were catching and releasing smaller fish--we saw one successfully released. "What's the record weight at the tent?" the old guy asked. We'd stopped by, so we knew: it was 5.5 pounds. "Yeah, that was set the first day of the derby," the guy said. So no one had broken it yet.

This old guy, he was wearing a hat that said "NRA" and the back of his T-shirt said "America's freedom wasn't won with licensed guns," self-IDs that would generally be offputting for me, but he was the soul of friendly hospitality, telling me about how to get a fishing license, sharing that recipe--it was great. Also, his little group was right next to a group of Chinese-speaking folks, so . . . it was nice.

the river

Comments

[missroserose]

I am completely amused by this, because "fish lifters" is a phrase that (for completely unrelated reasons) Brian and I sometimes use comedically - I had no idea this was actually a thing!

[asakiyume]

You'll have to let him know :D

What do you guys use it for?

[missroserose]

I sent him the link to your entry this morning, in fact! Being a little more versed in technological solutions than I am, he already knew such elevators existed, but he was pleased nonetheless. (His favorite solution to the "getting fish across the dam" problem is the fish-cannon. But I imagine that's less efficient than the elevator, if certainly more dramatic.)

As for what we use the it for, not any one thing in particular - Brian heard the phrase "glistening fish-lifters" in a podcast and was so tickled by it he would find occasional reasons to use it just to make us laugh. He also had to register a website at one point to host one a phishing scams (as part of his security work, not as a criminal enterprise), and went with some variant on phishlifter.org.

[cmcmck]

Fascinating!

Thank you!

[asakiyume]

You're very welcome!

[zdenka]

I've never been to the Holyoke dam. That stuff about the fish elevator is really neat!

[asakiyume]

We'd never been before either, though we'd seen it from a distance--I was really glad to finally get there.

[aamcnamara]

It seems like a lot of people I know have gone to the fish elevator recently! Thank you for the photos/videos, that's awesome.

[asakiyume]

Hahaha, that's hilarious! Anybody else I know?

(Now's definitely the season for it.)

[amaebi]

Man, I miss shad roe.

[asakiyume]

I guess although shad themselves are not considered all that great a fish, shad **roe** are a delicacy. When I was looking for information online about shad cuisine, I found references to shad roe.

[amaebi]

As a Midwestern reader of Rex Stout I always wanted to try it. Then in the 1990s I lived in Connecticut-- as it happens, not far from a lobster yard-- and had it three springs in a row Everything it was cracked up to be.

[sovay]

photos and videos of fish, people watching fish, people fishing, and massive machinery

I like all of these things.

Thank you for the tour!

[asakiyume]

My pleasure! It was a great day.

[zyzyly]

That fish elevator is pretty awesome! We have a fish ladder on one of the rivers nearby, and I like to watch the salmon negotiate it when the are spawning.

[asakiyume]

Elsewhere along the river I think they have those ladders--I'd like to go see those, too.

[heliopausa]

This is very pleasing to read about! :) Thank you!

[asakiyume]

My pleasure!

[rimturse]

Ah, I remember in my youth where we'd be convincing farmers to let us install fish stairs on their land and even if there was one who refused, we'd go ahead with the other parts and usually peer pressure would take care of that last part. ;)

Of course now I'm extremely curious as to how they count the fish that accurately?

[asakiyume]

They hire community college students to sit at windows as the fish go by! (Windows where the flow must be somewhat less fast than it was where we were.)

[rimturse]

Fascinating!

[gale_storm]

'Oh, oh, oh! Please press the button. I really need to pee! Please please -- huh? Oh right, we fish don't have bathrooms. Aaaaahhh...'

:-D

[asakiyume]

LOL!