Federal Funds Are Indeed Reaching the Mark
December 2005
Federal funds are hitting the mark in an on-going
project, titled the Tunkhannock Creek and Bowman’s Creek Assessment and
Restoration Project. The project is tasked with the restoration of
streams within both the Tunkhannock and Bowman’s Creek watersheds.
Restoration, in this context, means the identifying lengths of stream,
or “reaches”, with problems, and formulating a strategy to fix the
problem. To “fix” the problem is to return the reach to a stable
condition. Stable, in this context, refers to a condition were the
stream maintains its pathway, or alignment, and is able to transport the
gravel sediment through the reach without build-up or without continuing
stream bank or streambed erosion. The design process involved in
formulating the “fix strategy” is a multi-disciplinary process,
requiring an analysis of the stream hydrology (determining how much
water will come into the stream), hydraulics (determining how deep,
fast, and how wide the stream will flow), and biology (determining the
most resistive riparian vegetation, and creating proper habitat for fish
and wildlife). While in some instances the stream restoration may
slightly lessen the effects of flood waters, it is not intended as a
flood mitigation measure, nor is flood mitigation a primary objective
for the project. Care is taken, however, to make sure that the “fix”
does not increase flood levels.
The origins of this project lie within the efforts of
Congressman Don Sherwood. Congressman Sherwood, recognizing that there
were significant areas of severe stream degradation and instability
within the two respective watersheds, worked through the Congressional
Appropriations Committee to secure federal funds to continue the
assessment and restoration activities initiated in these two watersheds
by the Wyoming County Conservation District (WCCD). The WCCD had
previously obtained a PA DEP Growing Greener grant for watershed
assessments in several watersheds, including the Bowman’s Creek
watershed. These assessments were completed in 2003-2004 period. In a
separate project, assessments were made of selected reaches of the South
Branch of Tunkhannock Creek by Tim Eichner, director of the Water
Resource Center of Keystone College. The federal appropriation secured
by Congressman Sherwood was designated to complete the watershed
assessments in the 150-mi2 Bowman’s Creek and the 412-mi2
Tunkhannock Creek watersheds, and to restore the problem reaches to a
stable condition. The watersheds in which these activities will be
on-going include not only the two named creeks, but also all the
tributaries of both creeks. The congressman has been successful in
obtaining two subsequent appropriations, to which the Bentley Creek
watershed has been added.
When Congress makes such a targeted appropriation, it is
generally administered through whatever federal agency handles the
targeted activity. In the case of stream restoration, the federal
agency is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The total amount
of the appropriation must be “obligated” by the USFWS by the end of the
year appropriated, but once obligated, the designated receiver has five
years to actually spend the money. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
obligated the appropriated funds to the Wyoming County Conservation
District through a cooperative agreement between the two agencies.
Money to cover a portion of the salaries of the USFWS staff assigned to
the project and their travel expenses were deducted from the
appropriation, with the remaining money being passed on to the WCCD.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pennsylvania Field Office staff in
State College, PA continue to work with the staff of the WCCD to
accomplish the objectives of the appropriation.
To date, all field work on the project has been performed
by both USFWS and WCCD staff. The USFWS project staff includes a
hydrologist, a biologist, an engineer, and several interns. The WCCD
staff includes a watershed specialist, support staff, and more than 10
interns. The WCCD has actively taken the lead in completing both
screening assessments of the main stem and tributary streams in the
areas remaining, and also a detailed characterization and assessment of
the annual erosion rate from each of the identified problem reaches.
The USFWS has provided the training, equipment, and technical assistance
in the assessments, characterizations, permitting, and restoration
design. The project is being directed by a citizenry steering
committee, which oversees the execution of the project and makes
decisions on how the appropriated funds are spent. The formation of the
steering committee was facilitated by the USFWS, and is made up of
representatives from the Wyoming, Susquehanna, and Lackawanna County
Conservation Districts, the Bowman’s Creek and Tunkhannock Creek
Watershed Associations, various municipalities within the watersheds,
property owners along the streams, and anyone else with a vested
interest in the project.
Rehabilitating and restoring a stream is a lot like
building a skyscraper, considerable preliminary planning needs to be
completed before work can begin, and a strong foundation of information
must be gathered on which to build a successful restoration project.
The overall goal of the project is to minimize the excess sediment that
is polluting and clogging our watershed streams, the Susquehanna River
and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. The project is “front-end loaded”
with extensive data gathering on both problem sites and on stable
reaches. This is typically done in two phases; the first phase being
the initial visual assessment. The second phase involves estimating the
annual erosion amount, and doing detailed surveying of the channel
reach. The third phase of the restoration process is the design phase.
The data from the stable reaches is used to develop the dimensions,
pattern, and profile of the channel at the problem sites. The first
step of the restoration design is to design a stable channel. This
involves setting the proper depth, and width for the bankfull stream
flow. The second step is to establish and/or design a proper flood
plain. The third step is to stabilize the channel. Vegetation is the
key to maintaining a stable channel, but in the absence of riparian
vegetation, restoration structures are installed in the channel to
stabilize the banks until the natural vegetation is established. The
restoration and stabilization goals cannot be accomplished with hastily
constructed structures. If the proper rigor is not used in gathering
characterizing the problem site and reference sites, it can put the
restoration in jeopardy of failure during a high flow event.
Construction supervision, and attention to detail are also required for
a successful project. Like any other stabilization technique (rip-rap,
gabion baskets, etc.), natural stream channel design structures
occasionally need fine-tuning, or periodic maintenance.
A first-phase assessment involves walking the entire
lengths of streams and tributaries, assessing the stream conditions
using a standardized protocol (in our case the PA DEP Stream Visual
Assessment protocols), photo-documenting the conditions of the stream
and the streamside vegetation, and recording the location and lengths of
all impacted reaches. The Phase I assessments were completed for the
two watersheds during the summers of 2003-04 by a staff of 10 student
interns. To date, 43 severe erosion sites have been identified. Data
from these sites were used to establish a priority rating score, based
on the sites’ ratings for 14 different criteria. Final scores were used
to rank the sites in a priority order. The ranking was subsequently
used to schedule the detailed characterization (Phase II) work.
The Phase II characterization work involves detailed
surveying of the stream’s pattern and cross-sectional profiles.
Permanent cross section markings are established for long-term
repeatability and monitoring at select locations perpendicular to the
stream. Longitudinal profiles are made, with detailed measurements
parallel to the stream flow. Sediment measurements, called “pebble
counts” are also collected at each site. At each site a sample of a
depositional feature is sampled, sifted through sieves, and weighed. In
addition, a length of chain up to four-foot is driven into the streambed
to determine how much streambed scour occurs during a flood event. To
date, detailed Phase II characterizations have been completed at 10 of
the 43 sites, including the installation of more than 114 permanent
monitoring cross-sections, and detailed surveying of over seven miles of
stream length. Almost all of these data have been collected by the
interns hired by the WCCD and the USFWS, at a cost of $157,162 for wages
and travel expense. If an environmental consulting firm had been
brought in to do similar work, the cost would have been much higher; for
example a Mehoopany Creek site assessment conducted by a private firm,
on a small site (< 1 mile), cost $56,136. The WCCD cost per mile
assessed was approximately 3% of the private firm cost.
The third phase of a natural stream channel restoration
is the design of the remedial measures, which typically consist of bank
stabilization measures, channel realignment or relocation, or a
combination thereof. The restoration is based on natural stream channel
design principles, in which the natural stable stream characteristics
are emulated as much as possible, and structures installed in the stream
are designed to alter the path of the highest velocity flow away from
the banks, as well as provide much needed habitat features for fish and
other aquatic life. Each design must be permitted by the PA DEP, and in
certain instances, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, prior to
construction. To date, the design and permitting has been done through
the technical assistance of the USFWS staff.
The permitting applications for a stream restoration
project can be a very involved task in itself. Most sites require an
Individual Joint Permit, with PA DEP and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers. The permit application has 19 components that must be
included as part of the submission. These include detailed surveys,
cross-sections, and river characterization data, detailed drawings of
the restoration, assessments of the potential environmental impacts, a
plan for erosion and sedimentation control, notification letters for
various oversight agencies, and landowner agreement forms, to mention a
few. Assembling the document requires significant effort and time, as
the entire design must be worked out prior to completing the permit
application. PA DEP then has several months in order to complete their
review of the application.
Problem sites were selected for design and construction
by the project steering committee using the priority list developed as
product of the Phase I assessments. Twelve sites were selected for
design, permitting, and construction for 2005. However, this goal
proved to be a bit too ambitious, and due to delays in design and
permitting, the construction of these sites has been pushed back into
early in the 2006 construction season. The first sites slated for
construction include those on the tributary to Swale Brook in the
Tunkhannock Borough, a site at the Scott Township Municipal Building,
several smaller, preventative maintenance sites, and a channel
relocation, realignment, and stabilization project on Bowman’s Creek
along Jenks Road. Each year, for the next five years, more sites will
be selected for design, permitting, and construction for as long as
there remains funding from the appropriations. The USFWS is currently
working with PA DEP to provide emergency measures at the most critical
sites on the Swale Brook tributary for some protection against spring
flows until the full restoration design and individual joint permit
application can be assembled and reviewed. Dr. Larry Brannaka,
hydrologist with USFWS, was optimistic that some emergency measures may
be installed in the beginning of 2006.
Construction of these projects will be done by qualified
contractors, a large percentage of which are local to the area. A list
of contractors that are qualified for various activities involved in the
restoration work has been developed by the steering committee. The
committee will seek bids from those contractors that have been
pre-qualified for respective restoration activities. The USFWS is
providing training for the WCCD staff in construction supervision, and
will be overseeing the construction of the projects.
The Steering Committee also makes the decisions on major
equipment purchases to facilitate the execution of the project. Major
purchases for the project include a sophisticated piece of survey
equipment based on global positioning satellites, and a shared interest
in a vehicle for the WCCD. It is the latter purchase that Mr. Baker’s
article of November 30, 2005 references with obvious implications of
impropriety, having been purchased from Sherwood Cheverolet. The
Steering Committee authorized splitting the cost of a pick-up truck,
which will be prioritized for use on this project, with the WCCD. Bids
were solicited along with a list of criteria desired in a vehicle, and
the vehicle was purchased from the low bidder. Dr. Larry Brannaka, who
is intimately involved in this project, stated that “the formation of
the steering committee made up of public citizens from various
organizations and homeowners with vested interests in this project is
itself a watchdog mechanism against impropriety with public funds. To
have excluded Sherwood Chevrolet from the bidding process would also
have been discriminatory. They just happened to give us the best price
(and probably took the lowest profit margin) of those asked to bid.”
Dr. Brannaka notes that the Steering Committee typically
meets once a month. If anyone has a question as to how the
appropriation money is being spent, they have but to ask, as the books
are always open. Anyone with a vested interest in the project is
welcome to attend the Steering Committee meetings, and be included on
the information and announcement list. Persons with questions about the
project should contact Doug Deutsch at the Wyoming County Conservation
District (570) 836-2589 extension 106, or Charlotte Severcool at
extension 104, or Dr. Larry Brannaka at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (814) 234-4090 extension 240.
