Ok Smart Guys - what the heck is this
 

Upper Kern River in CA. Starts with dam/waterfall:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363780.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363794.jpg

Downstream from the "falls" - technical term?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363818.jpg

Some of the water is diverted into a concrete flume
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363887.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363927.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363965.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311363946.jpg

The water emerges from the tunnel into this labyrinth seen from the hill (ignore soulless car in shot)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311364065.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1311364139.jpg

I have been driving past this every couple of weeks as my son is in a summer camp north of this. Can't justify my curiosity - the thing looks old and important but I not sure of it's function. Of course water treatment comes to mind, but does treatment simply mean running it through a concrete maze?

The labyrinth doesn't look like it contains anything. And why only do such a small portion of the water if it in fact needs to be cleaned.

Could have been a fish hatchery at one time? Water diverted for irrigation?

could it be to allow Salmon to swim upriver? (I think they call those Salmon ladders)
-Z-man.

That's what I thought as well.

yep, a fish ladder there.

Kern River Fish Hatchery - California Department of Fish & Game ?

I guess it could have been a hatchery, but whatever it is has no attendants. Much working equipment still there. And there is a ladder on the opposite side but it doesn't seem connected to the flume apparatus. And I don;t think there salmon around but I could be wrong.

Fish ladder. Not just for salmon. Could serve hatchery pupose or counting depending on which part of the structure you're looking at

Yea! I was first to ID the picture!

What do I win? :cool:

That is definitely a fish ladder.

Thats a dam Blue Heron!

The fish ladder just north of McNally's (home of the 40 oz. porterhouse). The Kern is wild after that all the way to Mt. Whitney.

I was the rightful winna except my stupid hosp blocked replying and i had to go to the phone.:p

Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner!

That's an expensive, *******, green, eco-minded invention to save a few fishy. :)

The '*******s' don't dam the river in the first place.

fish ladder to allow migrating fish to come up the river and not be chopped up by turbines, or have to jump a huge dam.

They have huge "out take" pipes about 10 miles downstream that pumps the water back up at night to flow again during the day to generate electricity, just like the one in the aqueduct in the Newhall Pass.

I think that makes it a gereator.

agree the upper single channel is a fish ladder

the last two concrete pens look like settlement chambers
to get the mud out of the water for drinking
or just to keep the downstream from muddying up

There is definitely a concrete series of steps (the fish ladder) on the far side, but I just don't get the need for the dam/falls and the flume/labyrinth.