About

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In the late 1990s, Matt, the founder of Zinvent Industries LLC, was a wildland firefighter in the Black Hills National Forest while also attending engineering school at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. During the summer of 2000, Matt secured a forestry internship with the US Forest Service in San Dimas, CA where they designed much of the equipment the firefighters use. One of the projects that summer was to develop a fish-friendly method of removing water from lakes and streams. Since then, the products have been refined and are standard equipment for several state and federal agencies.  

Zinvent has continued to develop GreenScreens. These screens have been successfully deployed primarily on the West Coast from California up to Alaska to protect various juvenile salmon species from water pump suction forces. Zinvent’s proprietary screen is based on the federal and state guidelines in the Pacific Northwest regarding the various salmon juvenile species. Often these guidelines can be applied to other fish species to help their survival rates. 

Each GreenScreen design ensures necessary water flow to the pump while meeting the federal and state fish screening guidelines. Since the GreenScreen is much less likely to pull in juvenile fish species, it is also less likely to attract miscellaneous debris in the water.

All GreenScreens offer a method to help ensure uniform water velocity through all screen surfaces. Each design has been flow modeled to also ensure no 'hot spots' exist that may pull in fish or excessive debris in the water.  Each design meets these criteria when properly placed in the water:

• approach velocity - less than 0.2ft/s per the state and federal regulations (standard, but we can design for other approach velocities as needed, 0.33ft/s, 0.1ft/s, etc)
• screen hole size 3/32" or less
• screen open area - greater than 27%
• screen area - derived from approach velocity, flow rate calculations, and computational fluid dynamics modeling

3D flow modeling of each design helps validate each screens configuration.

Don't see a screen that fits your application? Contact us for any custom design needed. We can alter the connection type, shape, pump rate, size, etc... to meet your needs.