The collector system attracts, guides and captures young salmon for transport downstream past two dams. The entire investment in the fisheries system is US$50M.
The company said that record numbers of juvenile sockeye and coho salmon were migrating downstream this spring due to its enhanced fisheries work. By 16 June almost half a million young salmon had been collected by fisheries crews to be trucked to downstream release points.
In comparison, the 341,000 juvenile sockeye total to mid-month - still with a month of migration season still to run - is more than the previous record of 289,000 three years ago. The total so far of coho salmon is 127,000, which is much more than the previous record, set 20 years ago, of 79,000.
In a statement, PGE's vice president of power generation, Paul Wiegand, said: 'From what we see, the evidence suggests that the technology we recently built and deployed on the Baker is contributing, perhaps in a big way, to these record fish runs.'
PGE's fisheries investment was a key aspect to the 190MW Baker River scheme being relicenced for 50 years by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) late last year.
PGE has said the cost of preparing for and meeting the new licence conditions, including flood control measures and recreation, will be approximately US$360M.
The floating surface collector is a barge-based system with submerged screens, pumps, fish-holding chambers, an evaluation station, equipment control room and fish loading facility. Fine mesh nets across the reservoir and to its bed funnel fish to the collector.
Last month PGE won an award from the US national-hydropower-association (nha) for the new fisheries system.
