Vancouver-based Smith-Root recently installed a weather station at the Chicago 2A Fish Barrier located on the CSSC (Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal), which connects the Mississippi River system with the Great Lakes and is a likely path for invasive Asian Carp to migrate.
To prevent this migration, which would devastate the native fisheries throughout the Great Lakes, Smith-Root was awarded a federal contract to supply and install its proprietary fish guidance technology on the CSSC preventing Asian Carp passage.
The weather station, an Orion 420 from Columbia Weather Systems in Hillsboro, provides real time measurements of average wind speed, wind gusts, wind direction, air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, rainfall and solar radiation intensity.
The primary use of the weather station is to gather wind and solar data for the purpose of evaluating the site for suitability of renewable energy production. Smith-Root said the hope is that the CSSC site can generate electricity that is used by the fish barrier through the installation of wind turbines and/or photovoltaic panels.
