Some pictures from the last visit, as I promised

Here is Aminneförs : views of water front, you can see the slope :)

Billnäs, the group working : Mika, Meiko, Marco

Her you can see the fishway project places in Billnäs

Léa

Today we have been visiting the Mustionjoki area for the last time.
With Marco Casgrande, we have been in Billnäs site in order to see the place without snow ;) and to make mesurements of some places we were thinking to design a fishway : level of the water, space wilde between the historical buildings, , colors, direction of the light, possible vegetation...all these details are important to imagine a fishway which could integrate the existing landscape. We took many pictures, that you will see later.
So Billnäs,and also Aminneförs, since we decided many weekes ago to focus only on these two dams. We had a very nice walk on 2 hours between the two dams, a long of the river, trying to have a vision of a designed walkway,many fishermen and families staying and having picnic on the waterfronts. No so easy, nobody was there ! but the bucolic landscape carries nices pictures in our mind. Wait a little bit, some sketches will arrive soon from this walkway !

In Aminneförs, we met a journalist, who interviewed us for the swedish speaker local newspaper. About our personnal backgrounds, ou work, our vision of fishways...also some interesting critics about the question of designing a fishway in a private area, as well as Billnäs ! This is an important question for us, we have absolutely to contact the Billnäs owner, but from Marco, he seems enthousiastic about our project. Who knows ?
Also some pictures for the newspaper, us working, us sitting in front of the river...I am curious about this article, at least it shows that local inhabitants are really interested about the Mustionjoki project. I have to say that I was not expecting that, maybe my french way of mind. It is so positive !

Marco organised a meeting with interesting persons form the Raasepoori urbanism, the biggest city of the district (before Karjaa). We have to add the names on a list of thanks on our website at the end of the project. We got useful informations : the complete list of fishes species planned to go in in the Mustionjoki River, the complet plans/sections/elevations...of Billnäs area, the complete project of the old fishway which existed in Aminneför before they built the national road. Actually, we learn that it is not the dams which prevent the fishes to go int the river, but the construction of the road, wich destroyed the old fishway. Interesting!

From all these informations, we decided, hopefully definitively, where to place the 2 fishways : in Aminneförs, on the North side, to avoid the road and take profit of the flood of the river (which attracts fishes, so it can be ideal to lead fishes in a fishway at this precise place) , and in Billnäs among the buildings, and probably a part inside a building, in a nice and artistic architecural way.

We talk a lot with Marco and the persons we met anout the consequences of our project : this kind of visionnary plan have never been done there, even if the Karjaa community is talking about fishway for twenty years :) So we have to produce very strong images, or maybe only one, in the newspapers, to give again enthousiasm about this project. We speak also about Art Landscape, and I think this is the main interest of our work. Ar least for me, beeing an architecture student.

I am doing the final report plan as well as sketches.

Léa

Meeting

The meeting went well, we got lot of good information. For example, we got a plan that was made by Finland's environmental administration in the year 2000. They were planning to build a natural fishway in Åminnefors. We can use the information in our report and planning.

We also got 3 more answers to the questionnaire trough the website and that's good. Majority of the local people seem to think that fishways would be a very positive and important thing for the area.

Tomorrow we are going to Karjaa to check some things and our mentor has arranged some meetings with local administrative persons as well.

- Mika

Meeting on Monday

Tomorrow we will have an interesting meeting with our mentor and the chairman of VIRHO (http://www.virtavesi.com/). We can represent him our ideas and then hear his opinions about them. It is very interesting and useful because Virho has done so many projects related to river restorations. Probably we can get a lot of good information for example about the fishes. In order to design a fishway properly, we need to know what kind of fishes would be swimming in the river. For example, if there would be sturgeon (well for sure there isn't, but it's a good example anyway), a vertical slot fishway should be much wider (pool width = 3 m) than if the biggest fish would be salmon (pool widht = 1,8 m).

We have read a couple of good books about the desig and planning of wishways. Tomorrow we will find out more about the details and on Wednesday we will go for a study trip (to the dams) to find out more about some details.

- Mika

Migrating fishes

As we need to know what kind of fish species will be in the Mustionjoki to decide what is the best fishway to design, Marco sent a list of the fishes which are involved. I found on internet more details about these fishes like their size or weight.

There are mainly four types of fishes.

1. Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar)

I found on internet that this fish is also known as the "king of the fish" because of its athletic powers. It can reach a length of 1,5 metres and can be 2.3 kg-9.1 kg. Spawning is generally in October-November. The most important point is that it is a symbol of clean and healthy water that run wild to the sea. So if we can recreate a population of altantic salmons in the Mustionjoki, it means that the water will be clean and this is one of our aims !

The first fish-eggs have been placed in March 2010 in the Mustionjoki. The smots will live in the river between 2 and 3 years after which they will travel to the sea.

2. Sea trout (Salmo trutta trutta)

The trout can be 25 cm long up 140 cm long, and its weight is 10-15kg.
Marco told me that the trout can form sweat-water base communities some of them are already existing in the Karjaanjoki water system. Some enjoy migrating betweens rivers or streams or lakes - such as Lohjalake. Some will migrate to the sea like the salmon and then come back to the native river to spawn.

3. Whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus)

Its maximum size is 75 cm and its weight about 10 kg.We are concentrated on the migrating whitefishes

4. Eel (Anguilla anguilla)

The eel can reach a length from 40 cm up to 150 cm and its weight is approximately 4 kg.
Marco said that the amounts of migrating eels are less than 1% of what it was before 1980's. The Karjaanjoki water system has been famous of rich eel population that also our design is now trying to restore.

- Caroline

Example of fishways

We are currently processing on designing fishways and we are wondering what kind of fishway could be the most suitable to Aminnefors and Billnäs dams.

We really like the idea of a natural bypass fishway with a rockramp, in Billnäs but in Aminnefors, it might be better to design a fish ladder considering the dimensions of the dam and its location.

I have found some examples concerning fish ladders, there are four main types :
- pool-and-weir fishways
- vertical slot fishways
- denil fishways
- steeppass fishway

For more information, go to : http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10364_52259_19092-46291--,00.html

Basically :
-the first one is more suitable for trouts and salmons but not for species that don't jump, so for small fishes it will be difficult. It can be sensitive to floods.

Pool-and-weir fishway : Columbia River-USA

-the second one has a constant flow pattern which means mainly that it won't be sensitive to water elevation in the river. It is effective for a wide variety of species, as long as the speed in the baffle is not too fast.

Vertical slot fishway : Murray River-Australia

-the third one has a wide range of water speed, so here again many species can use this fishway. It can also handle a wide range of changes in the upstream water surface elevation.

Denil Fishway at Trout Creek Dam- Michigan

Denil fish ladder : Blackfoot River Watershed-Montana

-the last one uses the same principle as the denil fishway but uses many baffles. Here again, a wide range of species can pass through this fishway. Same remark for the water elevation. This fishway is made of metal, and the sections are narrower than the denil fishway.

Steeppass fishway in Alaska

Another examples I have found is one small fish ladder near Otterton on the River Otter in Devon, England, United Kingdom and one fish ladder in Uppsala in Sweden.

Now we have to choose...

-Caroline

Unexpected answers

Last post, I was very pessimistic (might be my French origin :) ) about the questionnaire. I really thought that we won't have any answer. But during the last week, 10 persons have completed the questionnaire. Of course, these answers don't represent all the inhabitants, but it's better than nothing and at least, our article in the newspapers can be considered as successfull !! And with the further materials, we can have a definite idea of what inhabitants are expecting in the Mustionjoki area. 7 answers are in Swedish and 3 are in Finnish as we published the article in both Swedish and Finnish newspapers.

People who have answered are either around 60 years old or 25 years old. Most of them are in favour of designing a fishway as they think it will supply tourism in the area and in their opinion it's good if people can discover the river. As soon as possible, I'll try to write a detailed post with the answers in to summarize the feedback we had.

With the group, we met last Tuesday because time is running out and we have to start the design of the fishways. We also want to start the report as the deadline will arrive soon.
Léa and Meiko are in charge of the 3D-pictures once we'll have decided precisely what we want, which a huge work because we have to give "dream"with these pictures.
Mika and I are in charge of the fishways (technical details : dimensions, materials, etc...) we found one book (in Finnish of course) which could help us in our research.

For the moment, we decided to focus on 3 different fishways :
- rock ramp fishway
- bypass fishway
- fish ladder

Our favourite is the rock ramp fishway because it is more natural and offers possibilities to create walkways and small areas where people could seat and rest looking at the river.

Mika found a nice example of rock ramp fishway, designed in Kuuskoki.

The fishway is 137 meters long, the slope is 6m and the flow is 1m3.

More details later ...

-Caroline