It seems fitting that this post is going up in the middle of a never-ending New England rainstorm...The Sacramento Bee is reporting that water levels have gotten so high at Lake Davis, officials are concerned that the reservoir will spill over into nearby rivers, leading to the release of invasive northern pike (Esox lucius). An abnormal amount of mountain snowfall this past winter has led the the lake being as little as 27 inches away from spill level. A hydraulic engineer notes in the article that it would only take "one big storm event" to push the water (and presumably the pike) over the edge.
The ISW has covered the Lake Davis pike problem several times over the past few years, read more from 2003 (a, b ) and 2002.
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I'm trying to imagine what (hard) engineering solutions could be developed to help out, if there's any point. Of course there's the soft approaches to get rid of the invasives directly. But along the lines of a fish ladder, could there be some built device that either filters debris or whisks the overflow around to vigourously that the fish wouldn't survive?
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