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Fish-Friendly Hydropower Production at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Pacific Northwest Facilities
The Army Corps is designing a fish collector for Detroit Dam, located on the North Santiam River near Detroit, Oregon.
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22 | HYDRO LEADER | May 2022
Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Tom Conning: I am the deputy chief of Portland District’s Public Affairs Office and lead the media relations team. I’ve been with the district for more than 5 years and serve as an advisor to multiple project delivery teams that deal with issues including fish passage at Willamette Valley dams, hatchery issues, and water management. Brad Eppard: I am a fish biologist and the chief of the fish passage section with the Portland District. I have been managing and carrying out research for 28 years, 17 of them with the Army Corps. Most of my work has concerned passage and survival in the lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers. Jim Calnon: I am the chief of the mechanical-structural branch of the HDC. I have 60 people working in different hydroleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE IHA.
ith 75 power-producing dams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the largest generator of hydropower in the United States. Most of its largest hydroelectric dams are located on the Columbia, Snake, Willamette, and Rogue Rivers in the Pacific Northwest. These rivers are also home to important anadromous fish species, such as Chinook salmon and steelhead. In this interview, several professionals from the Army Corps’ Portland District and its Denver-based Hydroelectric Design Center (HDC) tell us more about the Army Corps’ efforts to make its hydropower generation activities more fish friendly, both in the Northwest and nationwide. We hear from Jim Calnon, the chief of the mechanical-structural branch of the HDC; Tom Conning, a public affairs specialist at the Portland District; Brad Eppard, a fish biologist at the Portland District; Rachel Laird, a fish biologist in the fish passage section at the Portland District; and Dan Patla, the chief of the turbomachinery section of the HDC.
