Battling the Asian Carp Invasion in the Great Lakes and in the Chicago locks

VIDEO: How water flows through Brandon Road LockRegion: Inland Rivers – Chicago to Mobile

Source: The Waterway Guide

Date Reported: Jul 9, 2015

Reported By: Mike Ahart, News Editor

Source: USGS

Courtesy of the US Geological Survey, this video portrays two areas near the Brandon Road Lock and Dam as the lock was emptied through the downstream valves, refilled with water, and then emptied again. Brandon Road (Illinois Wwy Mile 286)was selected as the newest location to install a “fish barrier” to prevent invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes watershed, in addition to the existing “Electric Fish Dispersal Barrier” located at Mile 296.1-296.7 on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

From the USGS:
This video shows a split screen with three different panes. The left half shows a series of photographs from two cameras in the lock (left), and downstream of the lock (middle). The right side portrays the velocity vectors at an acoustic Doppler velocity meter located in the channel approximately 1,200 feet downstream of the lock. The arrows on the velocity vectors indicate what direction the water is flowing and the length of the velocity vectors indicate how fast the water is flowing. All photos and the velocity vectors are time synchronized so that the viewer may see how the changes in the lock level change the velocity in the downstream channel.
This data collection is supporting efforts to combat the spread of invasive Asian carp into the Great Lakes Basin. Brandon Road has been selected as a location to apply controls to stop the movement of these fish. To develop these controls, the hydrodynamics of the system must be well characterized by collecting flow and velocity data.

Click on the following link to see the video:

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