Six months after reopening following another year-and-a-half of recovery from a near miss by the Slide Fire, the state is giving more than $3 million to the local hatchery responsible for over two-thirds of its trout.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department awarded a $3,020,000 grant to the Sterling Springs Fish Hatchery for construction of a new building, including renovation of its fish raceways and freshwater pipelines.

“Issues were raised in 2012 regarding defrayed maintenance and need for pipe input repair,” said Nick Walter, Game and Fish public information officer. “In 2015, a state- of-the-hatcheries report was completed [and] the Arizona Game and Fish commission prioritized this renovation within [its] budget process.”

Once the state approves its 2016-17 budget by the end of July, the U.S. Forest Service will review a construction plan for the more than 700,000 fish Sterling Springs grows — 68 percent of the trout stocked in Arizona waters as of May 2014, when the Slide Fire came within 30 yards of Sterling Springs.

“We don’t really plan on going outside the footprint we currently have,” hatchery manager David Fox said. “We just plan on fixing what’s already here and making the best use of the small amount of water we have here.”

Smaller than 40 years ago, when the amount of fresh water flowing from the springs totaled over 300 gallons per minute. It gets 240 gallons a minute now, Fox said.

“We have such limited water that when we clean, or do any kind of work in the facility, it’s really stressful on the fish,” he said. “It takes oxygen away from the flows.”

The main three-quarter-mile-long pipeline supplies not only the hatchery directly from the middle spring but also delivers 17 gallons a minute of fresh water downstream to campers at Pine Flat Campground and the Manresa housing subdivision.

It is between 60 and 80 years old, Fox said, and was wrapped in concrete six years ago. But he is sure that water is leaking through the concrete and into Sterling Canyon down to Oak Creek.

“The pipe is very old, [with] a lot of erosion [and] we’re losing water through the pipe somehow,” Fox said. “It’s considered a cultural artifact by the Forest Service, so we can’t just go in there, move dirt around and remove it ourselves.”

The pipeline is also near a known habitat of endangered species such as spotted owl and narrow-headed garter snake.

“My goal is to figure out a way we can just put a liner inside the current pipe,” he said. “It’s an epoxy-type resin. They cure it with steam and can have it in place in three hours.”

An auxiliary pipe, remodeled in the 1970s, branching off the pipeline from the lower “mud” spring also needs work, Fox added.

“I don’t think they’re ever going to let us totally remove the [main] pipe,” he said. “But we have other pipes gauged, so there could also be leakage from them underground.”

The outdoor raceways for the trout, first installed in the late 1970s, will also need to be resurfaced.

“They’re aging, they’re cracked, they’re not in the greatest of shape,” Fox said. “Some of the piping is kind of hard to work with. I think there’s better ways to bring water in so we can adjust it and move flows around.”

Fox added that the circulation system would need to be improved because oxygen levels in the water need to be at least seven parts per million before Sterling Springs can take any more fish.

“The dissolved oxygen would get really low — down in the fours or fives,” Fox said. “Six isn’t even great.”

The grant was funded entirely through the sale of fishing licenses. About one-third of it, or $604,000, is budgeted through early 2017 for design and engineering of the renovations, Walter said.

“Then there’ll be a second stage of construction, and then a finish-up stage as well,” Fox added. “They’re going to have three apportionments through 2019.”

The hatchery will need to be shut down for the duration of construction, which could happen as early as next summer, Fox said.

Tours of the facility are currently conducted by appointment only. To make an appointment or for more information, call Fox at 301-0837.