A fish hatchery in California’s Eastern Sierras experienced a major failure late last month due to a sustained power outage and a problem with the facility’s backup generators. In an announcement on May 27 officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said the power failure at the Fish Springs Trout Hatchery caused “a widespread loss of fish,” totaling around 75 to 80 percent of the fish stocks there, a mixture of rainbow, brown, and Lahontan cutthroat trout.
The losses at Fish Springs included fertilized eggs and fingerlings that were slated to be released next year, along with mature, catchable fish that would have been released in the coming months. Hatchery staff said this could impact stockings in the Eastern Sierras for the next two seasons, but that they would explore ways to minimize those impacts by bringing in fish from other hatcheries or buying eggs from private vendors. The trout raised at Fish Springs are typically stocked for recreational fishing at public waters across Mono and Inyo Counties, and it’s one of 21 hatcheries operated by CDFW.
“We’re devastated by the loss of these fish, which were the product of years of hard work and round-the-clock care by our expert hatchery staff,” CDFW program manager Russell Black said a release.
Along with sourcing additional eggs and fish from other state-run hatcheries, Black explained that the agency’s current priority is to assess and repair the facility’s backup diesel generators. They were supposed to kick in during the power outage but didn’t.
The initial power outage occurred during the afternoon of May 20 and lasted for about two hours, according to CDFW, which had scheduled a contractor to fix the hatchery’s backup generators just two days later, on May 22. It’s unclear from the announcement if hatchery staff knew the generators were non-operational at the time the outage occurred — CDFW noted that backup power failures at its hatcheries are rare. Regardless, the effects were devastating for the trout as water levels dropped, temperatures rose, and dissolved oxygen levels decreased.
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In a statement Wednesday, the Los Angles Department of Water and Power, which supplies electricity to the Fish Springs Hatchery, said the initial power outage was caused by a car colliding with a power pole. The utility company said its crews repaired the outage as quickly as possible and clarified that the hatchery’s other electrical problems were not its responsibility.
“While the loss of fish at the hatchery was unfortunate, we want to clarify that LADWP does not provide backup generators.”
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