U.S. Fish and Wildilfe Service Emblem Animation
Text on-screen: There are over 6 million river barriers in America. Obstructions like dams and culverts,
that are blocking the natural movement of fish and wildlife.
In New England,projects are underway to correct this problem, with the help of partnering organizations.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Fisheries and Habitat Conservation National Fish Passage Program Presents a glimpse of projects in the Northeast
Footage of massive flooding on a river in a town in Vermont. Background: Wow! Unbelievable! Any way you can email that? Look at the log, Sam!
Narration: A major flood hit New England in the fall of 2011,
wiping out bridges, dams, and culverts.
Along with the destruction,it's provided a whole new look at barriers
and the work with fish passage.
Straus: The amount of debris was unreal. So this was the only thing we could find to
temporarily fix the road. And of course, it's way short.
So they had to pick it up so the road would. So that, you know,
they couldn't start at the bottom because the road would have ended up this wide at
the top. Ah, but you know this is just a temporary fix.
Greg Russ: I saw it right after the flood... Straus: Well it has already filled back in.
My nightmare scenario was that in a big flood event,it was going to go all the way and
block the culvert. So I stupidly fixed it.
Ah, and, you know, I got to believe it would have maybe caused this to fail.
NARRATION:The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has stepped in after the storm to help provide technical assistance to the drastically needed communities.
Russ: The flood that we have had this year has helped us tighten up what we think we can do
in a way it has proven that the project that we are doing are meaningful and important.
And have a real role in the fabric of the community.
We were able to get a list pretty quickly of stream crossing structures that were damaged
in the flood. We passed that on to Washington (D.C.) and they came up with some money to
help towns not only replace the culverts, but upgrade them so that they are fish friendly
and pass everything. Not just water, but sediment and debris and ice.
And if culverts pass fish, they will pass everything else. So it is a great investment not only
for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but for the towns.
And we have been please that they're really supportive of that project.
Lyttle: One of the big things about this storm is it decimated the communities.
It destroyed the roads,it took out homes. It really hurt the community.
But it was because of improperly sized culverts that a lot of this had happened.
Now if we go back in, our program wants big enough culverts with 1.2 times bankfull.
So that the stream stays where the stream needs to be.
Russ: The centerline for the road right-away is
twenty-five feet on center on this side. And the State is going to riprap this.
So we wanted to push this back so that it doesn't affect that.
We also wanted to line the stream up so that it went straight towards the bridge.
There's space in here so it's not a barrier for fish.
And it's also going to act as a grade control to keep the stream from head-cutting up.
Floyd: I'm just pleased with the way it has turned out.
And I just think it's going well. Russ: And I like to look at the analogy of kind of like a road.
If you have a straight-away on a road, you drive
pretty fast. But if you have a nice, windy, curvy road you
can't go so fast. And that's the same way with a stream.
You want to have that nice sinuacity on a valley bottom stream like this.
And you want to have access to that floodplain to store some water.