So many people are gawking at the damage around Cowlitz PUD's Swift No. 2 hydro project that the utility is fencing off the area as a precautionary measure.

PUD spokesman Dave Andrew said a number of motorists traveling on State Route 503 have been getting out of their cars to view the damage at the site, just a few hundred feet from where a PUD power canal was breached the morning of April 21.

"It's not a real safe place to be," Andrew said Wednesday. "It's just a curiosity, people wanting to see the damage. We've had to deal with a lot of folks who have wanted to get out and look around."

Onlookers will still be able to see the damage, Andrew said, "but we're just encouraging them to keep moving."

No injuries have been reported at the site of the breach, which washed out a 200-foot section of State Route 503, destroyed a powerhouse and uprooted transformers, spilling 22,000 gallons of mineral oil into Yale Reservoir.

State agencies will partner with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife on further "fish rescues" late this week and early next week, transporting a threatened species of bull trout back to the Swift Reservoir. The fish were in the canal at the time it burst and have been stranded in a pond just west of a bridge that crosses the canal, Andrew said.

The utility hasn't determined an official cause of the breach. However, the PUD's consultants suspect that ancient lava tubes in the rock foundation below the dike may have let water erode its foundation.

The environmental cleanup alone ate up $800,000, and it cost $200,000 to pave a temporary roadway along SR 503. The total cost of the damage and/or repair, and how much of it will be covered by the PUD's insurance, is still unknown, Andrew said.

Swift No. 2 produced about 10 percent of the PUD's non-industrial power -- about 25 average megawatts. The utility is currently buying power on the market to replace it.