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July 14, 2020
Whooshh Innovations Intends To Bring First In World Technology To Michigan Fish Passage
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- A first-of-its-kind barrier is being designed and will be tested on the Boardman River in downtown Traverse City, Michigan.
If it’s successful, it could be a model for rivers across the world.
IPR reports a FishPass system is being developed as a new barrier to replace the Union Street Dam.
The project is a collaboration between the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, the City of Traverse City, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
IPR says a weir and associated waterfall will span a little over half the river. The weir will block all fish passage, pass flood flows, and will also reportedly maintain the elevation of downtown Boardman Lake.
Next to the weir will be adjustable gates, and downstream of those gates will be a thirty-foot-wide concrete research channel.
Whooshh Innovations intends to install and utilize a revolutionary FishL Recognition™ system, part of their overall Passage Portal solution for the FishPass project.
As the recognized experts on fish passage, the Whooshh Innovations FishL Recognition™ enables real time fish sorting. Artificial intelligence underpins our sorting capability.
The complete Whooshh Passage Portal has a modular volitional entry system, and will allow native species to be sorted and subsequently transported upstream, invasive species to be removed from the river, or other fish returned downstream, meeting all the FishPass objectives. The FishL Recognition system provides the “brains” to reliably make the sorting decision for each fish.
Scientists will also be able to gather data on the number of fish coming through, not just if it’s native or invasive, but how big it is, and which species.
Great Lakes Fishery Commission engineer Dan Zielinski tells IPR, “if you're only passing, say, 10% of the native fish at this site, but you're able to pass 10% of native fish at all those tributaries where you had zero, that's a pretty monumental improvement.”