Click the link to read the article on The Mountain Mail website (Lijah Sampson). Here’s an excerpt:
January 5, 2025
A recent study by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and a Colorado Springs Tribune article by Jonathan Ingraham have raised concerns about the adverse effects certain whitewater parks might have on local fish populations – but local CPW officials said they are pleased to report Salida and Buena Vista’s parks aren’t among them. For Salida’s Scout Wave, CPW collaborated with Mike Harvey’s company to design the fish passage part of the wave, CPW aquatic biologist Alex Townsend said. “It definitely took some forethought.” Though there are examples of whitewater parks that are not built with fish welfare in mind, Townsend said the parks in Salida and Buena Vista are built that way, and other whitewater park designers need to be sure to work with biologists and wildlife experts…
When building the fish passage, they have a gradient that extends a little further than the wave itself, with planned drops and pools below those drops. They also created rough elements, which create vortices for the fish to have flow refuge, he explained, resulting in the fish passage being nowhere near the same velocity as the wave…
Mike Harvey, project manager of Recreation and Engineering Planning, who constructed the Scout Wave and fish passage, said, “We’ve been working with CPW over 15 years. This is not something that is new to us.” In regards to the Tribune article, he said, “It’s a little surprising that this is coming up again,” he said…
Building the fish passage did not require any extra labor on their part, nor was it difficult, he said. “You’re going to set rocks anyway, so you just set them in the configuration that they need.”