SOON TO BE COMPLETE; NEW ZEALAND’S FISH SCREEN SYSTEM IS ONE OF THE LARGEST OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD.
The Rangitata Diversion Race (RDR) extracts water from South Island’s Rangitata River, 365 days of year.
The ‘race’ is a 67 km long channel which diverts water from the river for irrigation, stock water and hydropower generation. It has been built to capture flows at a rate exceeding 30 cubic metres per second.
AWMA were awarded the design and construct contract to supply a diversion screen solution that will deliver the required flows whilst excluding sporting fish (primarily salmon and trout) and a variety of native fish, so they can return, unharmed, back into the river system.
In order to accommodate large flows exceeding 2850 ML/d (33m3/s), the RDR project required seven stainless steel Self-Cleaning Cylindrical T-Screens each of 2.1m diameter and 8m in length, weighing over 6 tonnes each. As well as, one Self-Cleaning Flat Screen 3.5m high and 30m long.
This presents a total 374m2 screening area of 2mm stainless steel wedge wire screen, over 86m in length, with infrastructure weighing in excess of 100 tonne.
Manufacture began in October 2020, the structure is due to be fully operational in June 2022.
AWMA Fish Protection Screen Solutions are guided by the USEPA 316(b) compliant design requirements and the NIWA Fish Screening: good practice guidelines for Canterbury. Innovative screening technologies are available for numerous applications. Contact the AWMA Screen Team for further information.
