St. Stephen fish elevator outing...

Our recent outing to the fish elevator at St. Stephen was quite the revelation! First, I never knew there was such a thing, and second, it was quite the tour of the facility, but mostly, the birds definitely knew about this place as there were hundreds of White Pelicans and Double Crested Cormorants, along with Osprey and Bald Eagles, all there for the smorgasboard of fish that make the run up the river this time of year!

The facility is officially the "Cooper River Rediversion Project at St. Stephen" and is maintained by the Army Corp of Engineers and monitored by staff from SCDNR. Representatives of both organizations were on hand to provide us with a very informative behind the scenes tour the public will never see!

Opened in 1985, the project was developed to provide hydro electric power to 40,000 homes in the area as part of the Lakes Marion and Moultrie dam project, and is home to the Southeast's only fish elevator!

So, why a fish elevator?
From February to the end of April, anadromous fish in the form of American Shad and Blueback Herring make the 55 mile journey from the mouth of the Santee River to return to their spawning grounds in the Marion and Moultrie Lakes. Because of the dams that were built, a method was needed to allow the fish to make that journey possible, and so the fish elevator was built!

Operating in the same way a lock would on a canal, the migrating fish are attracted to the elevator because of an Attractive Flow that is created by the system. You can see the entrance to that in the photo below, where all those White Pelicans are gathered to catch an easy meal!

Keep in mind that the fish are swimming 'upstream', so the powerful outward flow of water from that small opening is what creates the 'attraction' to the fish to enter the tunnel that will take them to the 'elevator'.

Once enough fish are in the holding area, a pair of doors close behind them, and there is water in the shaft to balance the water level between Lake Moultrie above and the entrance at the canal below. A basket at the bottom of the shaft is then raised, pulling all those fish upwards until other doors are opened at the top of the shaft and the fish are then able to leave the elevator and make their way out to the lake and continue on their journey!
The whole process takes about 12 minutes.

Here, looking down through the top of the elevator, you can see the inverted V shape of the doors that are closed to trap the fish in the elevator shaft. Just to give you a sense of size, those doors are 40 feet tall!

A view of the canal from the top of the elevator.

Every season, biologists from SCDNR monitor the migration, and using cameras and software they are able to estimate the number and type of fish that are transported through the elevator. Every season they estimate that over 500,000 fish make that journey!

There are also viewing windows that are open to the public, and all you need to do is go to this link for information and to schedule an appointment...but hurry, because the viewing area is only open until the end of April. 
https://www.dnr.sc.gov/fish/fishlift/fishlift.html

Our SCDNR guide did say that sometimes other breeds of fish also enter the elevator, and one year he had quite the surprise to see a beaver swimming through! I still thought it was a treat to see all these birds, though.