<p>Tens of thousands of fish have been sucked into Thurmond Dam and killed recently, prompting officials to shut down the dam's hydroelectric turbines several times.</p><p>Power generation was interrupted Friday, Saturday and Sunday to reduce the number of fish being killed, said Jamie Sykes, a district fisheries biologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.</p><p>About 18,700 fish were killed Friday, 13,300 on Saturday and 14,120 on Sunday, Sykes said.</p><p>Most of the dead fish were blueback herring, which school in large numbers near the dam during summer months. When surface water warms, the fish move to deeper water, and occasionally choose to hover at depths that are dangerously close to the dam's turbine intakes.</p><p>Fish mortality Monday and Tuesday was minimal, but officials will keep an eye on water temperature until the fish move away from the 30-foot-wide turbine intakes 80 feet below the surface, Sykes said.</p><p>There was no evidence that striped bass or larger game fish had been killed by the dam.</p><p>Blueback herring are abundant in the 70,000-acre lake. A 1996 Clemson University study estimated the lake's herring population at 68 million.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2866514)</p>
