Salt Water Barrier
If excessive salt water were allowed to migrate into Salmon Bay, the salt could eventually damage the freshwater ecosystem. To prevent this, a basin was dredged just above (east of) the large lock. The heavier salt water settles into the basin and drains through a pipe discharging downstream of the locks area. In 1975, the saltwater drain was modified to divert some salt water from the basin to the fish ladder, where it is added via a diffuser to the fish ladder attraction water; see below.
To further restrict saltwater intrusion, in 1966, a hinged barrier was installed just upstream of the large lock. This hollow metal barrier is filled with air to remain in the upright position, blocking the heavier salt water. When necessary to accommodate deep-draft vessels, the barrier is flooded and sinks to the bottom of the chamber.
Read more about this topic: Hiram M. Chittenden Locks
Famous quotes containing the words salt, water and/or barrier:
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 5:13.
From the Sermon on the Mount.
“This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land and water. It was a kind of water on which you could walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its surface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permitted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, and we now understand the propriety of this provision.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Clearly, some time ago makers and consumers of American junk food passed jointly through some kind of sensibility barrier in the endless quest for new taste sensations. Now they are a little like those desperate junkies who have tried every known drug and are finally reduced to mainlining toilet bowl cleanser in an effort to get still higher.”
—Bill Bryson (b. 1951)