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Paid for by a 0.6 percent price increase to customers, the equipment collapsed in the water as it was being built in 2009.
Then last summer, when it was up and running for the first time, it heated the Lower Deschutes River to temperatures that could hurt the very fish it was intended to help.
This year, PGE's experiment is working without major problems and has passed close to half a million fish while the dam complex supplies 465 megawatts of power to PGE customers.
The biggest headaches are caused by small pieces of wood and rock that get caught in its filters and some river otters stealing fish.
PGE built the fish passage facility because of environmental regulations tied to federal dam relicensing. The utility hopes it will help restore fish runs in central Oregon.
A 275-foot underwater tower draws cold water from the bottom of the reservoir behind the dam and warm water from the top, creating currents that suck juvenile fish into the facility. Then a series tubes and pumps that weave around a floating metal platform at the top of the tower sort out which fish are the right species and right age to pass.
But some 435,000 fish have been sucked through the facility as of June 15. The facility has an approximately 98 percent survival rate for chinook, sockeye and steelhead, PGE says.
"We got lucky, the thing is working like it's supposed to work," says Jim Bartlett, a fish passage biologist for PGE.
Now owned jointly by PGE and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Round Butte Dam complex was built in the 1960s and is an impassable barrier for salmon and steelhead. Early attempts at using a gondola to carry fish over the dam failed. So until the fish passage facility went in, PGE would grow salmon and steelhead in hatcheries below the dam to help replenish the run.
But now, young hatchery-grown salmon and trout are released in Lake Billy Chinook above the dam where they grow for one to two years. Then the tower draws them into the fish facility, and a truck takes the below the dam, where they can migrate to the ocean.Oregon State University associate professor Desiree Tullos says engineering feats like the facility are likely to increase as long as saving fish and retaining dams are both goals.
"This is an expensive project and it's only one," she says. "For every dam that's aging and falling apart, that's going to have to meet those environmental objectives, we're going to see a lot more."
Meanwhile, questions linger about the underwater machinery at Round Butte. Fish biologists like Bartlett are waiting to see whether more fish come back up the Deschutes River, and whether those fish are healthy.
"We're all waiting with bated breath," says Bill Bakke, the executive director for the Native Fish Society.
Water temperature remains a concern as well; it can mean life or death. The tower's water mixing continues to warm the water downriver, says Jason Seals, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife assistant district fish biologist for the mid-Columbia River district. And warmer water has the potential to stress fish more. Temperature might also alter the timing of salmon and steelhead life cycles.
And fishermen like Chris O'Donnell still aren't happy with the warming water that hurt steelhead catch last July. O'Donnell, a fishing guide on the Lower Deschutes and owner of River Runner Outfitters says he hopes that the facility keeps temperatures lower this summer.
"I try not to be a selfish fisherman, I try to be environmentally conscious," he says "But I think there's a happy medium that hasn't been met yet."
Additionally, Seals says ODFW will monitor how changing water temperature will affect the amount of nutrients in the water.
"There's still a long story to be told here, this is only the second year," Seals says.