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More than 25 miles of the Broad River above Columbia, SC are now open to American shad and other migrating fish _ and to the anglers that like to catch them _ due to a fish passage facility at the Columbia Diversion Dam. The diversion dam is part of the Columbia Canal development which had blocked upstream fish migrations from the 1880s until 2006 when the fishway opened. In addition to shad, blueback herring, and American eel, the rare robust redhorse sucker and resident species now swim through the fishway to ascend the river and return to native spawning grounds. The fish passage was installed by the City of Columbia as a condition of the new license for the dam issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It is the first fishway to be constructed and operate through the federal relicensing process in the Southeast and lies approximately three miles upstream of the Gervais Street Bridge.
