HHS Stream Restoration

The long awaited Spring is fast approaching in the land lab.  We watched all winter as the water moved through the stream exactly as designed.  Snow melts or rain on top of ice were always interesting to watch as the flood plain would become just that…a flood plain.  The no mow zone also handled a lot more intense run-off than in past years due to the raising of the grades on nearby athletic fields.

Now we have some new Spring residents – hopefully nesting residents.  Red-winged blackbirds have been seen and heard in the past week.  Three pairs of mallards (male and female) have also been seen frequently in the large pool behind the lower berm.  The red-shouldered hawks that normally winter and sometimes nest here are still around as well.  Looks like the birds at least are taking advantage of the new conditions here.

Another exciting event was the arrival of equipment for our stream and habitat studies that we will conduct this spring and fall.  Thanks to the hard work and commitment of the all of our grant partners, especially Cuyahoga County Board of Health, we had a decent amount of money to spend on enhancing the land lab experience with fantastic equipment.  This included a remote camera, trail cameras, a weather station, waders, nets, boots, field guides, survey equipment and so much more.  We, the teachers and students, are really pumped about getting out and busy this Spring.

See pics below to get a better idea of all that has been going on…

Last week, a team of students and professionals completed the last major step in restoring the stream.  All of the physical and hydrological features have been in place but the site has looked quite barren with very little plant life being re-established.  We knew this would be the case but we couldn’t wait to get some more visible signs of life back in the land lab.  So planting these trees, shrubs and plugs really gave us a feeling of completion.

ER&M, headed by Jason, spent Tuesday and Wednesday installing the larger trees.  Some of the more obvious species were oaks, sycamore and black gum (tupelo).

Wednesday and Thursday were planting days for students.  First the shrubs were installed and then the herbaceous plugs on Thursday afternoon.

Lastly, Kevin, Meiring, Chris and I spent some time installing live stakes near the riffle structures.

Can’t wait to see the area in the spring when we find out how the plantings will get established.

Today, our AP Environmental Science class went on a nature hike to check out the status of our new stream’s ecosystem. We investigated the biotic factors and populations growing in the stream, such as eukaryotic organisms, outside of Hudson High School to keep updated with the stream restoration. We collected these photos from the organisms found in the habitat:

With the construction and grading now complete, we are ready to enter into the final stages of the project.  So far everything looks great.  As you can see in the pictures below, the new stream structures are doing exactly what they were designed to do.  The flood plain is being accessed during timers of heavier rain and the cobble weirs are managing the flow.  We can’t give enough credit to the folks at Biohabitats for the design and Meadville Land Services for the construction.

The question we have been fielding the most from community members, teachers and students is “What happened to the trees?  It just looks like a huge bowl.”  A great way to explain this is using the analogy of fixing a car.  Sometimes you need to remove a lot of important parts to get at the problem.  Once the problem is fixed, you replace the parts you removed.  So we are ready to get some plants re-established in the area.  Grass and other fast growing plants are beginning to carpet some of the berms and meadow areas.  The bulk of the planting will take place around the first week in November.

What’s amazing is how quickly life will recolonize an area once the disturbances are gone.  We have already noticed some very cool shorebirds using the muddy banks of the stream, a Great Blue Heron cruising up and down the stream and a snapping turtle hanging out in some of the deeper pools.

Students have gotten to hike through the new land lab a little bit.  We were still able to conduct a bug diversity lab this week in some of the weedy areas that were untouched.  Can’t wait for November.

Punch List Meeting August 20, 2012

view from upstream limit at the end of construction

students in new outdoor classroom area

ecology class finishing a bug diversity survey

Wet floodplain between cobble weirs

higher flow through cobble

Things are really getting busy as the summer winds down and the school year approaches.  At first glance the stream restoration and nearby stadium construction are generating an incredible amount of dirt!  Where will it all go?

The downstream reach and middle reach of the stream restoration look basically complete as the pictures below will testify.  The only thing that is really missing is the vegetation.  A lot of seeding has been done.  Just need to be patient for that to appear and fill in.  More planting this fall.  In fact, thanks to Kevin Grieser’s hard work, we will have even more larger shrubs and trees to plant than previously expected.  Also, thanks to Cuyahoga RAP and Tinker’s Creek Watershed Partners for contributing extra funds toward this effort.  There will be some opportunity for the students to be more involved in this planting than previously thought due to the increase in plant material.  Very exciting.

The drought conditions over the summer made it difficult to imagine how the new stream would look and behave with flowing water.  My wife commented on her first visit to the site “This is a stream, right?”  At the time it looked more like a nearly dried up pond.  Now, with some recent rain, it is flowing and looks great.  In fact, the flows we had hoped for seem to be occurring.  Prior to the project, a rain would fill the stream to its banks quickly and then flow off in a matter of a few hours.  A long summer drought would have left us with a dry stream bed in the past.  Now we have a system the retains water in the pools and wetland areas for weeks and flows in a more controlled manner when the rains do come.  Its cool to see things working as the design intended.

Several events coming up…Team meeting tomorrow and some public events in September.  Stay tuned…

The stream restoration has really taken shape in the downstream reach this week.  I stopped out this afternoon to check out what has happened and spoke with Justin for a few minutes.  What they have accomplished so far is very cool.  The most noticeable thing is the wetland they have constructed right near the west parking lot.  The berm is in place as well as the cobble weirs and step pools leading into and out of the wetland.  Some seeding has been done on the berm but that is obviously not very noticeable yet.  Justin explained that some of the native plants in that mix won’t even be visible until next year anyhow.  The extremely dry weather has kept the grass from sprouting but it has made construction much easier for the guys from MLS.

Two inlet storm water pipes used to dump directly into the stream in this reach.  Now the stream flows through the much larger wetland area and is now longer directly connected to the pipes.  These pipes now flow into smaller side-channels that enter the wetland separately.  From an ecological perspective, the storm water is allowed to spend time in the wetland before entering the stream itself.  Valuable filtration time and less erosive along the stream banks.

View of wetland and backside of large berm next to west staff lot

MLS installing cobble material for riffle behind Dean House

View of new wetland in lower reach. Bird Feeders in original positions. What a change!

Looking from school driveway upstream to step pools and berm exiting the wetland

This area will be awesome in years to come.

Justin thought they would finish construction in the lower reach in just a few more days and will soon begin work on the upper wetland.  Can’t wait…

Today we met behind the white house to discuss the construction to date. Meadville Land Services has been staging and clearing the area for the stream restoration structures.  The area looks completely different.  Lots of vegetation gone.  Even the residents have expressed concern but this is just part of the restoration process.  We discussed this with Justin from Meadville.  His response was great – ” you have to break eggs to make an omelet”.  From the perspective of us teachers they actually have left more trees in place than we thought.  We also saw lots of new material coming in – boulders and cobble mostly.  It’s just very exciting to see things changing.  Can’t wait to take students out in the Fall.  Photos to come…

We are finally ready to get underway with the land lab restoration.  The Pre-construction Meeting and site visit went well this afternoon.  The guys from Meadville Land Service met with our head of grounds and maintenance, Chuck Schilling to discuss logistics and a few key details on site.  The City of Hudson Engineer Tom Sheridan was able to verify all the items on the Pre-Construction checklist and inform everyone of the City’s expectations for the work.  All the team members were present including Cuyahoga County Board of Health, Tinker’s Creek Watershed Partners, Summit County Soil & Water District, the City of Hudson and Hudson City School District.  Everyone expressed excitement to get things rolling.  If all goes well, we should see the work begin June 18.  Can’t wait to see things take shape over the summer.  Updates to come.