Allegheny National Fish Hatchery, December 2006, showing new raceway enclosures. (photo by Tracy Copeland, USFWS)

Allegheny National Fish Hatchery, October 2005, just prior to fish depopulation. (photo by Tracy Copeland, USFWS)

After more than twelve months without fish on station, Allegheny National Fish Hatchery, in Warren, Pennsylvania, has taken one giant step toward returning the facility to lake trout culture. Two metal arch buildings were installed over the station’s forty concrete raceways. Completed January 12, 2007, each structure covers 20 raceways and measure 60 feet wide by 448 feet long; they are twenty feet tall. The buildings will allow the primary fish production area to be protected from incursions by birds, small mammals, and mist produced from the nearby Kinzua Dam.

The facility was de-populated of lake and brook trout in November 2005, following the detection of the fish virus Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (IPN). The virus causes acute mortality in juvenile fish, and would have a negative impact on lake trout restoration efforts in lakes Erie and Ontario. It is believed that the primary pathway of infection at the facility came from wild birds in the open concrete raceways.

During November and December 2006 hatchery staff cleaned and disinfected the egg incubation room on station. The juvenile fish rearing tank room has been scrubbed from top to bottom. Total chlorine disinfection is awaiting work on the station’s water supply tower.

Work to repair deteriorating walls in the concrete raceways is scheduled to begin in spring 2007. Additional renovations to the hatchery’s water supply system are scheduled, pending available funding.

Lake trout for the two lower most Great Lakes, are being reared at two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fish hatcheries in Vermont during the renovation of the Warren facility.