Salmon Blocked at Hemphill Dam on Auburn Ravine

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B78Hvmdw7prcNGZjeXFBZUZ2cW8/view?usp=sharing


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What should have been a great year for the wild salmon on the beautiful Auburn Ravine is turning out to be a disaster.  An early December storm brought fish into the system in much greater numbers than 2012, but the fish found themselves unexpectedly blocked by the Hemphill Dam.

A temporary baffle structure, built last year by Nevada Irrigation District to help fish past the dam in low water conditions, wasn’t removed on schedule.  The structure was to be removed before this year’s run and replaced by a system more suitable for normal water flows, like this year’s.  But the district failed to remove the structure in time and it has remained in place during the storms and the ensuing high water conditions.

Debris floating down the river caught on the retaining cable of the poorly designed baffle and formed a debris dam.  The debris dam actually makes Hemphill more dangerous to fish than its previous condition, before the temporary structure was built, because in its current state fish are funneled away from the channel towards the baffle, which they have no chance of getting over.  They are blocked from spawning in their historic grounds.