Monday November 21, 2011
At first glance this appears to be a strange fisheries snorkel survey, but in fact this technician is doing underwater construction work. We recently installed a substrate rail that will eventually hold a fish counting weir in place. This technician was wearing a hardhat because he was operating a jackhammer above the water (YouTube video), but he didn’t remove it before plunging face first underwater to inspect the heavy rebar stakes driven into the river bottom. This installation process is different from the substrate rails we’ve anchored previously, because every site has a different river bottom substrate, providing a new challenge for our field technicians.