This week I was entrusted with the task of opening the riparian valves at the spillway. Our spillway in Grand Rapids is approximately five kilometers away from the station and it has four gated sections. Section 2 has two riparian valves which when opened allow water from the forebay to spill into a dry river bed. We open up these valves every spring to allow the fish to spawn as a part of the Walleye Enhancement Program, and it remains open for approximately eight weeks.

A consulting company determines the rate of speed that the water should flow and we calculate how many inches to open the valves. At 150 cubic feet per second (CFS) only one riparian valve needed to be opened a total of 31 inches. If we needed to have 250 CFS we would fully open one valve and partially open the second valve to accommodate the correct amount of flow.

Our spillway is a formidable structure measuring 116 meters long and 21.4 meters high. The gates are about 13.5 meters tall and it has 66 steps from the deck to the bottom, trust me I counted!!!

This is the view from above the riparian valve.

One step at a time...

Here is the view of both riparian valves, from the bottom.