After a one-day postponement, the Fish and Boat Commission undertook a major fish rescue at Kyle Lake.
Workers had set up a holding area to catch the fish leaving the pipes before they made it into a stream.
The lake is being drained to the bottom so workers can access the dam. They scooped out fish with nets and put them into trucks.
“We have cold clean water in our hatching trucks that’s roughly the same temperature as the water here at Kyle Lake and then we also have aerators and liquid oxygen that we can use,” says PFBC fisheries biologist Jason Detar.
The fish were headed for Cloe Lake near Punxsutawney. Officials say they also dug a pit to handle any dead fish.
The dam construction is set to take a few years.
Later Thursday, PFBC Commissioner William Sabatose said thousands of fish were saved and they had to dig a “trench” because mud was blocking the intake pipe to get the fish.
Sabatose says he found a 20″ black crappie, which ties a record length, but they did not have a scale to weigh it, and workers left about 6 p.m. Operations are set to continue again on Friday.