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Faith: Karla, could you tell us a
little bit about the bioengineering
techniques that have been used on this site?
Karla: Absolutely. One of the goals
we've had from the very beginning with
our first stream relocation is we
wanted to make them look as natural as
they would in nature and yet stabilize
them because they're new and because
they're not vegetated yet. So what we
did in our first relocation is we were
already into construction, and we
realized later on during construction
that we needed more stream bank
stabilization. And the contractor came
up with the idea that he was going to
bring in a lot of really heavy riprap,
so that was not only gonna be
expensive, but that really wasn't the
look that we were going for. And I
remembered years ago we had started to use biologs.
So we decided to bring them in, and we
used them on our first project to start
stabilizing stream banks, and that's
turned out to be one of our greatest
tools. And we use them and they work
great. What happens is over time they
start to vegetate and they stay in
place and they do provide the stability
that we're looking for. In addition to
that we use this natural, it's like
coconut weed fiber matting, and there's
two reasons we really like that. It's
natural. It doesn't have netting, and
for little critters like little
amphibians or even with any kind of
snakes or birds they don't get tangled
in that like they do with some of the
plastic. So when you're in a more
sensitive natural area, we always use this netting.
It has a lot more give, so they don't
get caught in there, and also, what you
can do is you can see here we use a lot
of rootstock plantings, and a lot of
our stream bed and along the channel
and sometimes a little further up,
depending on the degree of inundation
on the channel. But, what we do is we
cut holes in this matting and we put
the rootstock in there, and what
happens then is when the rootstock
starts to expand, the matting gives. So
it isn't like some of the other tighter
mattings where it will actually
constrict the rootstock so it can't
just start to expand like we want it
to. And in addition to that we have
what we call our rootstock protection.
We learned the hard way I think on one
project that I replanted twice because
we had planted the rootstock and then
the geese showed up. And what they do
is pull it out, they eat the little
tubers, and all of a sudden the
rootstock was all floating in the
water. So we planted it again. The next
time we went back, floating in the
water, so we decided we were gonna have
to figure something out to keep the
geese from eating the rootstock before
it gets rooted and established.
So I had gone to a workshop years ago,
and they had talked about potential
staking, and this is actually another
item that DOT uses on any project where
we have rootstock. And you have this
basing at the stakes, and what's
critical to these is that not only that
the stakes we set out where the geese
can't reach in and grab the rootstock.
But you also have it on the backside so
that once the silk fencing would be
down they can't also grab it from the
other end. And you need these three
layers of twine. The reason you really
need that is so that goslings can't go
under. The goslings go under, the
parents follow, and then you also need
the additional two heights.
So like I said what we always try to do
is incorporate as many natural biotech
products as we can, and to keep it more
natural and very critter friendly,
which is one of my top priorities on any projects so.
Faith: How does the maintenance work
for projects like this, too? Do you
have to come back so often and check
things? Like, everything is in place
now. Does somebody watch it and make
sure that things stay in place?
Karla: Well, we get wetland mitigation
credits, and anytime we have wetland
mitigation credits, we have to come out
and monitor any of our wetlands. So we
do that for a period of five years, so
long after the contractor and
everybody's gone, I'm still out here
every year doing vegetative monitoring,
doing maintenance or management of
invasive species, and just checking on
how everything is going.
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