Oregon Public Broadcasting

Over the weekend, a $100 million fish passage broke during construction on Lake Billy Chinook, near Madras.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and Portland General Electric spent Wednesday contemplating how to fix the fish passage – and who will pay for it.

Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

Bobby Brunoe, the natural resources general manager with the Warm Springs tribes, says the broken fish passage didn’t hurt anyone – and won’t kill any fish.

But it will seriously delay the construction of the $100 million project.  It was supposed to be ready to use on May First.

Brunoe says the accident happened Saturday night, as crews were connecting two pieces of the 140-foot-tall tower.

Bobby Brunoe: “It sunk to the bottom of the lake. They’re not quite sure what went wrong – whether it was metal fatigue or what. So they are going to have an investigation to see what went wrong.”

Work began in 2007 to collect salmon and steelhead in the lake and truck them around the three dams, to allow their migration.

The costly project was required as part of the federal relicensing agreement for the three Lake Billy Chinook dams on the Deschutes River.