Thompson Falls Fish Tracking and SCADA System

Thompson Falls Dam is a 93 MW hydropower facility, built in 1917 on the Clark Fork River near Thompson Falls, Montana.

As part of a fish passage study plan, GEI has developed a fully automated fish tracking system. This system has been designed to study how fish behave when they encounter this installation to better understand how to develop appropriate fish passage facilities.

This fish tracking system consists of a series of fixed, solar powered receiving stations that are linked to a central control computer via wireless cellular modems. The central control computer polls the various receiving stations and downloads the data for display in near real time on a custom built Internet site. The system analyzes incoming data and display the locations of approximately 120 fish that have been fitted with surgically installed coded radio transmitters. These transmitters emit continuous coded radio signals that are detected by the receiving stations. By carefully designing the antennae arrays and receiver locations, the position of each individual fish can be determined, tracked and mapped over a long period of time. Simultaneously, the data acquisition system captures and displays data on flow, gate settings, as well as discharges at various locations, water temperature and other water quality information. These data help determine specific conditions that most effectively attract fish to locations where they can be trapped, or induced to enter a fish ladder or other fish passage installations. Additional systems monitor flow and water quality parameters such as total dissolved gas, turbidity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and various meteorological data.