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Fish-friendly water extraction
Earlier in March, SQ Landscapes Principal Project Officer, Paul Webb teamed up with Peter Ebenwaldner from AWMA Water Control Solutions to speak with people in the Border Rivers about fish-friendly water extraction.
Currently, millions of fish are lost from the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin when they are drawn through large pumps and water diversions. Fisheries biologists from around Australia are working to quantify this problem and to develop solutions. Together with recreational fishing bodies and industry body representatives, they are developing guidelines for fish-friendly water extraction. With New South Wales and Victoria already slowly addressing the issue, there has been limited awareness and uptake in Queensland rivers to date.
Working to raise awareness about the issue, Peter and Paul met with irrigators, local government, First Peoples, recreational fishers and other community members of the Border Rivers to discuss scientific and engineering information and showcase a sample fish-friendly pump screen. Initial responses varied and included surprise, scepticism, curiosity and calls to action.
While some irrigators indicated solutions would also benefit from managing trash that currently clogs pump intakes or sprinkler irrigation systems, others were concerned about the cost and logistics of installing and operating screens. Most indicated they would be more open to the new technology with the assistance of public funding and support while screens are trialled in the northern, ephemeral river systems.
Peter showed interested parties the AWMA designed and constructed sample screen, which bolts onto a 30cm/12” pump intake pipe and is “fish-friendly” for pump intakes of 10 megalitres per day. The screen size, spacing and internal baffles ensure entry velocities of approximately 0.1 metres per second. At these velocities, fish do not get wedged against the screen as they can swim away. Small amounts of debris that settles on the screen are removed with the autorotation process and the internal and external brushes. The open pump ends routinely have entry velocities of over 1 meter per second and large apertures resulting in fish sucked into the pipe and pump and/or debris wedged against coarse mesh trash screens.
It is hoped that Murray-Darling Basin “Toolkit” money will be made available to subsidise early adopters of this fish-friendly technology. Announcements on Toolkit funding is anticipated in the near future.
For information about fish-friendly water extraction, click here
to visit the Fish Screens Australia website. For more samples and information about solutions produced by AWMA, click here
to visit their website.
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