In early fall, environmental law attorneys Jeanette Schuster, Max Miller, and Stephanie Grant joined a fun outing to Whooshh Innovations’ live fish transport system on the Washougal River in the Columbia Gorge. The event was offered by the Oregon State Bar Environmental & Natural Resources Section and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to showcase an example of new fish passage technology being created in response to ongoing legal issues relating to dams and hatchery fish.
The system, which utilizes a “Whooshh tube” and “Salmon Cannon,” propels hatchery Chinook salmon captured by a weir into a holding tank at the riverbank – a distance of 120 linear feet – in approximately five seconds. This is done to keep hatchery fish from interbreeding with wild fish. This technology can also be used to transport fish around dams and is innovative and fun to view, since it’s possible to see the fish “whooshing” through the tube.
Jeanette, Max and Stephanie are members of the firm’s Environmental & Natural Resources practice group, which helps clients anticipate and strategically address environmental and resource issues.
