2023-05-05 14:01:46
The fish from the Coo hydroelectric plant have just gone down a floor. They had been moved two years ago because of works. Engie has just returned them to their natural environment.
Carp over 20 kilos
The operation took place this Friday morning in the upper basin, emptied, of the Coo hydroelectric power station, not far from Stavelot. There are only a few large puddles about fifteen centimeters deep. The fishermen spread their nets, collect the zander, roach, bream and carp – some weigh more than 20 kilos – and pour them into large basins. They will be driven back down and then released in the lower basin of the plant.
This plant is made up of a lower basin in the shape of a horseshoe and two upper basins, 275 meters higher on the hill. The installation is huge and is used to store electricity in liquid form. When there is too much electricity on the network, wind or photovoltaic, Engie pumps water to the upper basins. When there is too little electricity, just open the valves. The water runs down the pipe, passes through turbines and generates electricity again.
Two years in the upper basin
The lower pool has just been enlarged. As it is in a natural site, there were fish in it. These fish had been harvested and sheltered in the upper basin until the work was completed. “We came every ten to fifteen days with forty kilos of pellets to feed them” recount Jean-Marc Schinckus, the president of the united fishermen of Trois-Ponts. Since the upper basin is made of concrete, the fish could not find much to feed on.
Today, after two years, the work is finished. A short trip of two kilometers in large basins and the fish are released into their normal habitat: the lower basin. The pick-ups arrive one after the other in reverse and stop at the edge of the water. The large plastic basins are emptied with a net and the fish, alive and well, released one after the other in a much more natural environment than the gigantic smooth tubs that are the upper basins.
Little mortality
A huge carp moves away. “That’s a beauty. Here they are in paradise” laughs Jean-Marie, a member of a fishing club who has come to lend a hand. The fishing companies, which helped Engie in the operation, estimate that they had very little mortality: out of a hundred carp brought up to the upper basin in 2021, they found more than ninety.
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