Dam and fish passage characteristics modeled at the Conte lab led to the final design and construction by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center Turners Falls, Massachusetts. The hydraulic flume building can pass over 5,000,000 gallons an hour of gravity flow water from the canal. The design was based on extensive modeling studies at USGS ' S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center in Massachusetts, a component lab of the Leetown Science Center. Labyrinth weirs installed in a prototype seven-pool section of a fish ladder to evaluate utilization by actively migrating American shad during 2000.
Initial results suggest improved performance over more traditional designs.