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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Return to Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery
lush green trees surround a neatly trimmed grass field. A lowell (cherrypicker) forklift (10 ton heavy equipment) is on the left and a hemlock tree is on the right. A orange lift platform is suspended up from the right to the netting depicted in the middle along with the wood telephone poles that hold up the netting. There is a chain hanging on the lowell and two staff clad in yellow reflective jackets, red hardhats and dark blue pants on the lift platform about 15 feet in the air.

Collaborative Net Repair with USDA

Updated September 18, 2026

Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery has partnered with the Nashville US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) office to repair the stations net system. The purpose of this net is the exclusion of animals in order to limit predation or biological contamination. 

The net at the hatchery lasted 18 years with little maintenance but slow loosening of taught points and annual storms to a cumulative toll that led to a decline in viability and eventual net structural failure in 2020. The net solution was proven as an effective solution, efficiently providing a relatively low cost, low maintenance, long-term solution to a facility need. Repairs have been focused on sustaining the effective aspects of the initial net with a few tweaks to help keep the net system at a peak performance. 

Repair stage one is the replacement of anchor points. The old anchors have pulled out of the ground from the winds pulling against the net and guy wires. That loosening caused the net to sag, poles to lean, some real safety and structural decline in the system. 18 years is a good long run, but the new anchors are rated at 43k lbs, mounted in place and taughtened with 10k lbs, and located at new points that require much fewer ground attachment points.

The original net for the hatchery with installation cost less than $200k, 20 years ago and the commercial ‘repair-only’ bids in 2021 came back with quotes between $800k and $1.2million dollars. Construction-type project costs have risen like home prices and the hatchery deferred maintenance plan was about 15% of this amount. Even utilizing an interagency cooperative plan, costs are higher than the long-term infrastructure planning was designed for, leaving the service to make some difficult prioritization choices to try to take advantage of this ideal use of funds. Collaboration like this has great potential to utilize some of the skilled tradesmen within these agencies and develops some repeatable approaches to infrastructure alternatives (especially true regarding the relative cost of anything construction related).

Collaborative net repair project completion (mid section form inside)
Completed middle section of the Collaborative net repair project

Project scope summary:

  • Complete removal or ground level cutoff of old anchor points
  • Complete removal of old netting and compromised guy wires (most)
  • Engineered:
  1. Strategic consolidation of anchor points
  2. Ground anchor load spread utilizing a wholistic tension configuration opposed to the previous single point tension design
  3. Load dispersal through addressing the guy-wire support structure and netting superstructure as independent whole units with perimeter attachment points only. This shift is meant to use the innate strength of the netting and mass to counter adverse weather events such as high winds and ice loads.
  4. Reworked interstitial pole support system. Pole supports shifted from vertical only with high shear possibilities into the addition of 4 way guy wire support anchoring stretched across the full width and length of the netting system. These longitudinal wires included fulcrum point wire bracing to maintain different planes of tension.
  5. Perimeter netting shifted to vertical with wear considerations for wear and tear along ground and fence connections
  6. Increase in guy wire support substructure by 40% to increase substructure strength and reduce shear point development potential along sagging net gaps.
  • Installation of engineered solutions
  • 434,ooo square feet of netting installed
  • Net ground attachment is a combination of lower tension wire and direct fence attachment points with c-rings every 6”
  • Post repair activities
  1. Perimeter critter exclusion along the section of netting not affixed to fencing. Approximately 1200 linear feet of woven wire cloth stapled to poles. Pending supplies and weather
  2. Development of an annual service agreement intended to prevent the 15year balloon cost. Initial ballpark agreement cost estimate 10k (includes all net, pole, anchor, and trapping preventative and repairs. Will not include cost for supplies required for significant structural maintenance)
  3. Budget synopsis
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Collaborative Net Repair with USDA of Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service