FCA’s Les Perkins and Dan Kleinsmith had a great time traveling to the 31st Annual California Salmonid Restoration Federation conference in Fortuna, CA last month. A great time, that is, until Les suffered the weirdest knee injury ever, then it was just Dan having a great time.

The California Salmonid Restoration Federation always puts on a terrific conference. FCA really enjoys exhibiting there, learning from all the great presenters, finding new potential Farmers Screen projects, and meeting all the amazing people working on the front lines of salmon restoration in California.

We will definitely be back next year, without the crutches!

Dave Iverson near the Upper Badger Creek diversion, photographed by FCA's Dan Kleinsmith

We first met Dave Iverson during a site visit to the Upper Badger Creek diversion in Wasco County, Oregon, during the planning stages of a 30 CFS Farmers Screen install. This project was in a very remote site and opened 6.91 river miles for safe fish passage while serving 3,610 acres of farmland.

Dave has been the ditch walker for a long time and knows his stuff. His weekly trek to the site is 2.5 miles one-way. I say “trek” because there are no roads to the site. Rain or shine, the ditch walker is responsible for maintaining proper water flow down the ditch to the users. He is also the guy that has to jump into the creek to adjust the check boards across Badger Creek and after getting to know him, I doubt he cares if he’s wearing any hip waders. This is one tough individual. Dave is the go-to guy for getting things done, and he does a great job for his irrigation group.

We look forward to chatting more with Dave and learning how the Farmer Screen installation has helped him get his job done.

– Dan Kleinsmith, FCA Project Manager

We were so excited to see Farmers Irrigation District (FID) highlighted in the January 2013 issue of Irrigation Leader! Their article, Farmers Irrigation District: Creating Revenue through innovation focuses on FID’s innovative advances in screening, hydro, pipeline conversion and habitat restoration. (Click the link to download the PDF. Article is on pages 32-33)

The article applauds FIDs “many technological accomplishments,” that Irrigation Leader says “results in significant gains.”

For more information on the Farmers Irrigation District, visit its website at www.fidhr.org or call District Manager (and former FCA’er) Jer Camarata at (541) 386-3115.

Great job, guys!

Here’s that link: http://www.waterandpowerreport.com/newsletters/January%20_2013.pdf

Here is a very cool video from American Rivers and film maker Andy Maser. Great short video about many inspiring things that are happening on the Deschutes (besides the Whychus Creek Farmers Screen).

We are so grateful to Sustainable Business Oregon for their coverage of FCA’s Growth Capital Campaign in an article by Christina Williams, published on their website today.  Please read and share with your friends!

FROM ROY:

It was back in 2010 that FCA first experienced the River Network’s ‘River Rally’ conference. High up above the Salt Lake Valley floor, surrounded by the best snow on earth at Snowbird Mountain Resort, we learned about this group and the Rally. It left such an impression on us that once we heard that the 2012 Rally was going to be held in Portland, OR, we immediately signed up to host one of the field trip days here in Hood River.

Farmers Screen at Coe Creek, during the River Rally Field Trip tour.

Working with River Networks’s Katherine Luscher, we secured a full-day field trip, bringing 23 folks from 12 states from the conference center in Portland up to the Hood River valley to tour a Farmers Screen installation, have a wine tasting and talk about organic practices and irrigation management with Scott Hagee at Pheasant Valley Winery, and to tour and taste at Full Sail Brewing company while learning about their water use practices that have set them apart from most of the industry.

Pheasant Valley Winery's Scott Hagee talks to the group.

The weather couldn’t have been better, the group nicer, or our itinerary stops more impactful. We were able to show these great people around this amazing area that we work and live in, introduce them to some people that are working hard to protect fish and resources, and let them have a great time in the process.  A big “thank you” goes out to the kind people of River Network for making this tour possible, Craig DeHart with Middle Fork Irrigation District, Scott at Pheasant Valley winery, and Lisa and Randy at Full Sail. Everyone enjoyed the day and the time that you took out of your day to be with us.

River Rally conference - that's Roy in the lower right.

Rally Ho!

From Dan:

I was out at Corbett Water yesterday morning for the start up of their new Farmers Screen. There are a few changes that need to be made to the fish return pool, but other than that it performed beautifully. The Corbett Water intake comes off the North Fork of Gordon Creek, on the back side of Larch Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge. Beautiful place, but I’m convinced it rains every day. There are ferns growing out of ferns, growing out of moss alongside the access road leading up the intake. That kind of tells you something about the place.

For this design, we placed the screen inside an existing flush out bay and left enough room under the new screen for a new 10” flush out pipe. In this design, water enters the headgate and is hydraulically pushed up into the inlet flume by the elevation of the existing diversion dam. Water flows through the screen, into the attenuation bay, then out a pipe that connects into the water district’s existing mainline, just down from their old intake screen. The new screen is 20’ long with a 10’ long inlet flume.

This site was absolutely a perfect fit for a Farmers Screen.  I’ll be back up there in a few weeks to take the glamour shots once the district has put on the finishing touches, so stay tuned.

FROM ROY:

A couple of years ago, while attending the River Networks’s annual River Rally conference at Snowbird in Utah, someone said to me “FCA should attend SRF.”  That person was so right. The California SRF conference was a great first step for FCA to make to introduce our screen technology to a new area and for us to hear where they are in screening and fish passage.

One of the main presentations - so inspiring to see so many people working for fish!

I submitted an abstract for Les to present on our lessons learned and it was accepted as part of the fish passage workshop held a couple of days before the conference kicked off.  The workshop was well attended with about 125 people turning out to hear the presentations and participate in the Q&A sessions.  Les did a great job presenting our technology to a group that had never before heard of FCA or the Farmers Screen.

Les presenting during the fish passage workshop.

The conference itself was a great place for us to meet folks in the industry and to hear about what they were trying to do to protect fish and deliver irrigation water.  I felt like it was a great place for us to hear about projects, concerns, and activities of people working on these issues in regions beyond where we have been focusing our efforts. California has a lot of opportunities for the Farmers Screen and FCA and I feel like Les’s presentation highlighted how our screen can be used to help them. We’ve already received a couple of phone calls from water users and we are pretty excited about helping them out.