I know this sounds like a dumb question and I should have clerified a littel more. Ever since I was a kid, i noticed that when they are generating water, some times water will be flushed out in the back of the hole. When it does I thought it should smell like fish but it smells like raw sewage. Has anyone else ever noticed this? And does anyone know why?
I am not sure I understand your question. Not sure how you flush out a turbine, they are either on or off, do you mean when they generate (ie run) you smell something? Are you talking about the backflow moving towards the dam (hydraulic or hole), rather than downstream? Got a particular dam in mind, most are configured slightly different.
Ive never smelled any sewage smell, just smells like river water.. now if your down there after heavy rains, you may smell lots of dead fish, possums, occasionally a dead cow or deer, etc .. but there is no sewer near the dam, the sewer treatment plant is down town
I think your talking about the trash and mass of dead fish, mostly drum that get caught circling around the turbins when there is just one or two running kinda slow.
The good thing about this much water having to be moved is the "junk" gets washed down to Alabma. emoBigsmile
At the chick dam, the railing by the first turbine. When the water is running, usually kinda slow, about every 15-30 min you'll here some water running in the back of the hole. When the water is low enough, you can look around the wall and water is coming out of a pipe. When this happens, it smells just like raw sewage. Its very distict because there is usually dead fish and bait/trash everywhere, so the usual stench of rotting flesh is always there.
The smell comes from organic matter ( leaves fish limbs or poop ) that has settled down and when they flush it makes the matter come in contact with oxygen and creates all types of by product gases like ammoniaand hydrogen sulfide, Mainly the hydrogen sulfide is what makes it smell like poo.
I believe that jasper is on tho something. The deep water ahead of the dam does not get much oxygen deep into it. As these fish have pooped non-floaters it sinks and just sits there. Eighty thousand plus cfs has not been seen in a while so some junk is finally been picked up off the bottom in the deep water.
Actually , we saw it this past winter as well when the water got up. Spill gates and all. I dont think that is the reason, but I am an armchair Dam-stink-diagnostic rookie.... emoBigsmile
