Many of these wetlands form within floodplains, low-lying lands along rivers that naturally flood. The transformation comes quickly after a storm. What was once a dry or muddy landscape quickly comes alive as flood water flows over the land, tempting mallards, pintails, and waterfowl of all kinds to flock to these vital habitats to feast on nutrient-rich seeds and small aquatic creatures, rebuilding the fat reserves that fuel their long migrations. The shallow water creates easy feeding grounds and sheltered havens to rest between flights. Waterfowl, like so many other floodplain-dependent species, have evolved their life cycles to the natural flood pattern. 

Unfortunately, more than ninety percent of floodplains in the lower 48 have been disconnected or degraded, contributing to more than half of wetlands being lost, and they continue to disappear at an alarming rate. Each acre drained means fewer places for birds to land and fewer natural floodplains to buffer nearby communities from floods.  

One of the main governmental agencies that can make or break the health of our nation’s floodplain wetlands — and the services they provide for humans and waterfowl — is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This agency’s choices on paper can shape what survives after the next storm, from homes kept out of harm’s way to wetlands where life thrives. 

3 FEMA programs that impact floodplains, wetlands, and waterfowl 

1. National Flood Insurance Program 

NFIP offers flood insurance to reduce the financial risk to flood-prone homeowners. It covers flood events typically not covered by homeowner’s insurance. For homeowners to be eligible for the NFIP, a community must put in place minimum standards that guide where and how floodplains are developed. The program relies on FEMA flood maps that show where flooding is most likely and to shape how and where we build. 

When construction occurs in floodplain wetlands, the wetlands are commonly drained and filled to make way for homes and roads. Local communities then lose the natural flood protection healthy wetlands offer, and waterfowl lose their habitat. Communities that go above and beyond the minimum standards to keep floodplains open for nature to do its job, storing floodwater and providing space for wildlife, can enroll in the Community Rating System (CRS).  
 
CRS rewards communities with lower flood insurance rates when they take extra steps to build away from high-risk areas and conserve wetlands within floodplains, creating a long-term incentive to protect these irreplaceable landscapes. This allows protected floodplains to become seasonal havens where shallow waters brim with ducks and geese. Beyond prevention, FEMA also works to restore floodplains that have already been lost. 

2. Hazard Mitigation Grant Program 

The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program helps communities recover from floods and reduce future flood risk through projects like home buyouts and floodplain restoration. Funding becomes available to states, local communities, and tribal governments after the president declares a disaster. When implementing voluntary buyouts, local communities use FEMA funding to purchase flood-prone properties and remove the high-liability buildings. This begins the process of potentially allowing floodplains to recover and come back to life. But the decisions that communities make next are important.  

Once FEMA buys out the properties, the agency encourages the land to be managed for natural floodplain and wetland restoration, but does not carry out the restoration work itself. Instead, local governments and community partners decide how each lot is cared for. When the land is left as mowed grass, its ecological value fades. When the land is restored with native plants and reshaped to hold water, it becomes a flourishing wetland again, reviving migratory bird habitat. 

3. Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program 

FEMA doesn’t just help communities improve their flood resilience after a flood; the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program can take on acquisitions and other flood mitigation projects before the flood happens. In recent years, PDM got a huge boost with the creation of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which has unfortunately been rolled back under the current Administration. 

Through BRIC, FEMA started funding more natural flood-management strategies called nature-based solutions, including programs that reconnect and revitalize floodplains, which create the shallow pools and marsh vegetation that migrating waterfowl rely on each spring and fall. 

Advocating for FEMA policies that work with nature by giving rivers room to flood without inundating property and by allowing storm drainage to settle helps support our feathered friends. As storms grow stronger, FEMA can help implement common-sense limits on risky development to avoid draining and destroying our valuable wetlands. 

In the stillness of a morning wetland, you can see what’s at stake: a living landscape that protects us as surely as we protect it. Across the country, wetlands are vanishing every year. Now is the time to protect what’s left. 

The post Where the Water Goes, the Birds Follow: How FEMA’s Flood Programs Shape Wetlands for Waterfowl appeared first on .

The anglers among us may already be thinking ahead and guessing that what the caddisfly has to say is something like “I know how to help you catch that brookie” as a dry fly lure on the end of their line. True enough, angler friends. 

But there’s a bigger and more powerful message coming from this taxonomic Order (Tricoptera), the largest group of aquatic insects. While the caddisfly does go through a complete metamorphosis and eventually emerges as a terrestrial flying insect, its more interesting phases are the aquatic ones. The common defining attribute of the caddisfly is its ability to generate silk. These hard-headed (literally), antenna-less critters use that silk in savvy ways to build sophisticated and wildly creative homes. 

While these insects are small, it’s easy to see their home-building skills if you look closely in a small stream. The many different species of caddisflies have adapted to different aquatic habitats, so you can find them from still pools to quickly rushing riffles. In those quiet pools, they will use their silk to construct homes from leaves or small sticks and twigs.  One of the important jobs of the caddisfly is helping to decompose organic matter in streams. While building homes with this organic material, they also shred leaves and twigs with their strong jaws, which contributes to the cycling of freshwater nutrients. To see these leafy homes in pools, look for small collections of shredded leaves and twigs in a gossamer web of silk.  

Where water is flowing faster over cobble and gravel bottoms, you will find them nestled into tubular homes made of small stones with just their tough little noggin poking out the end! They collect these stones and artfully build a snug tubular home cemented together with their silk. You can find these sturdier homes by gently turning over rocks and seeing these small structures, usually less than an inch, attached to the underside of the rock. 

So there goes the three little pigs analogy – leaves, sticks, and stones – for the straw, wood, and bricks! I know, I know. Kinda like a dad joke… 

But back to their clean water work.  Most of the different species of caddisflies are sensitive to water quality conditions, particularly the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. When the dissolved oxygen is low due to increased temperatures or too many nutrients in the water, they are not able to survive. This characteristic is used by aquatic scientists to monitor the health of rivers and streams in ways that are much more powerful than occasionally taking a measurement of dissolved oxygen with a meter or chemical test. 

How so? 

For over 30 years, scientists have been assembling groups of aquatic organisms – algae, bugs, and fish – and grouping them according to their tolerance for different conditions of pollution. Some river critters are very tolerant of low dissolved oxygen or turbidity, or other chemical conditions, some are not. The caddisfly larvae are important members of these groupings of indicator species. 

By creating these groupings based on extensive monitoring and statistical analysis, a robust predictive model is created and used to understand how our work to improve and protect water quality is doing. 

So if we watch which critters are living where, they can tell us if a stretch of river is getting healthier with much more certainty than a simple measurement of dissolved oxygen, turbidity, or pH. 

Here’s to another clean water worker helping us all to enjoy what our rivers and streams give us all! 

A version of this blog was first published in Estuary, a quarterly magazine for people who care about the Connecticut River; its history, health, and ecology—present and future. Find out how you can subscribe at estuarymagazine.com. 

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The work at Ackerson is a gift that will keep on giving to generations of recreators, wildlife enthusiasts, and downstream water users. The benefits of restoring mountain meadows are both significant and wide-ranging, and a restored meadow has a sort of multiplier effect on the surrounding landscape and watershed. A healthy, fully restored Ackerson is projected to store 70.8 million gallons of groundwater each year, or enough water to satisfy the daily use of almost 250,000 households, while filtering out pollutants before flows enter the South Fork Tuolumne River. Of course, California is known as a global biodiversity hotspot, and Ackerson Meadow is home to nearly 60 species of birds and provides refuge for threatened and endangered species such as the Little Willow Flycatcher, Great Grey Owl, and northwestern pond turtle. 

But Ackerson is also a gift for scientists and agencies who want to see this sort of work fine-tuned and expanded. We will monitor the site over the coming years, and the findings will feed into this ‘meadow movement’ organized by the Sierra Meadows Partnership, as we quantify the benefits of restoration: hydrological changes, soil carbon sequestration, and habitat recovery for endangered species.

Outside of the direct benefits to rivers, ecosystems, and the scientific community, Ackerson is both a milestone and a launching pad, setting the table for expanded public-private partnerships with the federal land management agencies and nonprofit conservation organizations. Through our years of project management, we demonstrated how a nonprofit like American Rivers can bring technical expertise, fundraising capacity, and the flexibility to achieve conservation outcomes in short order.  These partnerships and this project have shown not only the power of collaboration across different sectors, but also how a common vision can be approached from different angles, leveraging our collective expertise to the benefit of the communities we live in, the wildlife we cherish, and the rivers that are the lifeblood of California.

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But thanks to supporters like you, a nationwide groundswell of opposition convinced Congressional leadership to remove the public lands sell-off provision from the bill. A historic victory for public lands over an historic threat to them. Every voice can start an avalanche, and yours did just that.

The Author Wallace Stegner famously described America’s public lands, particularly national parks, as “America’s best idea.” Millions and millions of Americans across the political spectrum who hunt, fish, swim, paddle, play, and get their drinking water from public lands understand why. And they understand that selling off America’s backyard is to trade one of our best ideas for arguably the worst. It’s the difference between knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, as Oscar Wilde once said. 

While it’s true that selling off public lands might benefit somebody somewhere, that person is not you. You’ll be the one footing the bill, and it’s a bill you can’t afford. It will come due the day comes when take your kid to your favorite fishing spot and see a high fence across the river, now polluted, with a sign from a multinational mining corporation that says “Property of X Corporation. Keep Out — No Trespassing.”

Montana Congressman and former Secretary of Interior Zinke, who led the charge in the U.S. House against the sale, summed up the importance of defending public lands best: “Our public lands is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. It’s an American issue, and we should use it in that context of being red, white and blue.”

And it is in that spirit that all Americans must remain vigilant about defending public lands and the values they provide. Because the attacks won’t stop coming. We can count on future backroom deals in Congress to dispossess the public or attempts to repeal foundational laws and policies that ensure our system of public lands management. Already foundational policies like the Public Lands Rule, the Roadless Rule, Public Lands Rule, and our system of National Monuments are under attack. Such policies are vital to ensuring balanced management of multiple uses for conservation and development.

Success in an effort like this has many authors but extra special thanks go out to the following members of Congress — Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), Sen. Martin Heinrich, (D-NM), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) , Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT),  Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR), and Rep. David Valadao (R-CA).

Defending public lands must always remain a red, white, and blue issue. Continuing to lend your voice is the only way to keep it that way. Don’t ever let them fence us in.

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But how did American Rivers identify Wilson Ranch as the next meadow restoration project? Our meadow restoration work follows a life cycle that starts with watershed-scale assessment and prioritization to identify impactful restoration opportunities, followed by planning, restoration, and adaptive management of the highest priority meadows. We started this process in the American River watershed in 2016 using the meadow condition scorecard, a rapid assessment tool. This tool was developed by American Rivers, University of California, Davis, and the U.S. Forest Service, to quickly gauge the health of a meadow. Using the scorecard data, a group led by American Rivers identified Wilson Ranch Meadow as a high priority for restoration which then kick-started design and permitting work in 2019, later culminating in a road crossing replacement and full-fill channel restoration in 2023 and 2024, with adaptive management slated for fall 2025.

This meadow in particular serves as a stopover for migratory bird species such as willow flycatcher and provides important habitat for species like the southern long-toed salamander. The restoration phase of the project was completed last September, making this spring and summer the first time we were able to see the impacts on the hydrology of the meadow. The photo below shows flows spreading across the meadow, whereas before they funneled into an incised channel and drained away from the meadow before it could provide support for native plant and animal species. The Wilson Ranch project is now in the adaptive management and post-restoration monitoring phase, where we will continue to measure the effects of restoration and ensure our impact on the ‘fireshed’ moving forward. In September of this year, we will complete adaptive management to prevent erosion and the incision the channel, and will also continue to monitor groundwater levels, vegetation, and soil carbon in the meadow.

Throughout the restoration life cycle of Wilson, California experienced some of its largest and most destructive wildfires in recorded history. It became apparent that the qualities that sustain a healthy meadow for clean water and wildlife, also make them excellent at mitigating the negative impacts of wildfire by capturing sediment and runoff and providing high quality habitat for all life that depends it. Healthy meadows can also serve as natural breaks in fuel that can help prevent the spread of wildfire. With this in mind, American Rivers pivoted from a watershed-scale approach to a ‘fireshed’ based approach for the first time. In coordination with our partners at the Eldorado National Forest at Wilson, we updated our prioritization process to incorporate factors such as burn severity and sediment capture potential and shifted our focus to the Caldor Fire footprint, which burned approximately 167,000 acres of Eldorado National Forest in 2021.

The Wilson Ranch project and our prioritization work in the Caldor Fire footprint speak to the collaborative approach we bring to restoration work, working alongside partners such as Eldorado National Forest and in coalitions such as the Sierra Meadows Partnership and the Healthy Eldorado Landscape Partnership that are larger than the sum of their parts. This is the driving philosophy behind the landscape-scale healing of California’s watersheds, and post-fire recovery and wildfire resilience in an era of a changing climate. And as we wrap up this prioritization process, we are looking forward to tackling new restoration projects that support wildfire recovery and resilience in the Caldor region.

The restoration at Wilson Ranch Meadow was funded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Wildlife Conservation Board, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, all of whom have been ardent supporters of meadows and the wildlife that depend on them for many years.

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A few short weeks ago, public lands and the rivers that flow through them were spared from a disastrous sell-off provision in a massive tax and spending bill. Victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat because of the nationwide bipartisan public outcry against the proposal from supporters like you. 

But what happens now? Will there be more backroom deals and bills in the future that attempt to sell them off? Will there be attempts to enable misuse of public lands — effectively bulldozing America’s backyard and playground of regular people like you and me? You bet. Such proposals are like weeds — you can count on them sprouting up again and again. This is because influential special interests, from multinational mining conglomerates to big polluters, are always looking for schemes to get rich quick. The only remedy is to remain on guard, ready to defend against these bad ideas whenever they re-emerge. Or is it? 

Defending existing protections is an essential part of protecting America’s rivers. Policies like the “Roadless Rule” protect critical conservation areas from new roads and timber clear-cutting. The pollution standards in the Clean Water Act keep harmful cancer-causing chemicals out of your drinking water. But these common-sense policies are under attack — whether it be by outright repeal, rescission, or by failure by agencies to do their job. And while a country must defend these protections, it shouldn’t stop us from seeking new ones. As the saying goes, “the best defense is a good offense.”   
 
Communities across the country, and across the political spectrum, are proactively taking steps to protect their rivers and the values they provide as sources of drinking water, and as cherished places to hunt, fish, float, swim, and a multitude of other uses.  

The many braids of a protected river   

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for how to protect a river. Effective protection mechanisms vary across the country. The diversity of mechanisms to protect rivers is emblematic of American ingenuity — where there is a will to protect a river, we always find a way.  

Here are a few examples to showcase the diversity of proactive river protection approaches happening right now across the country at the federal, state, and local levels. 

Federal

With so many threats occurring at the federal level to public lands and the agencies entrusted to manage them, one could be forgiven for assuming that positive proactive action to protect rivers would be put on hold. Not so. For example, Republican Congressman Vern Buchanan from Florida recently sponsored and passed the Little Manatee Wild and Scenic River Act to provide comprehensive and permanent legal protection for Florida’s cherished Little Manatee River. Florida Republican Congressman, Rep. W. Gregory Steube, and U.S. Senator Rick Scott each introduced another Wild and Scenic River bill to protect the Myakka River in Sarasota County, while Rep. Ryan Zinke just introduced a Wild and Scenic Bill to protect nearly 100 miles of the Gallatin and Madison rivers in Montana. And thanks to bipartisan action in Georgia, the Ocmulgee River could soon receive permanent protection as America’s newest national park and the first co-managed by a tribal nation in the region.

Many other examples exist, from coast to coast, but we often don’t hear much about them, because the good news of “offense” for rivers is all too often drowned out by noise from battles to defend existing protections. But the lesson is clear: ongoing bipartisan grassroots efforts to protect rivers remind us that protecting rivers is not a red or blue issue; it is a red, white, and blue issue.

State

States and municipalities across the country have passed their own zoning ordinances to create buffers that conserve land along rivers. Known as riparian areas, the trees and vegetation along the banks are the proverbial lungs of a river, allowing it to breathe and filter nutrients to maintain the healthy water quality we need to drink, fish, and swim safely. The State of New Jersey is just one example of a state taking action to protect rivers through riparian buffers.

The state passed legislation that created rules for establishing and maintaining riparian buffers statewide. As a result, the state of New Jersey has one of the highest rates of protected rivers in the country. Other states from Pennsylvania, to Minnesota, to the state of Washington have all proactively established their own systems for establishing and maintaining riparian buffers. 
 
Another recent inspiring example of new protections for rivers at the state level comes from Alabama. In response to a groundswell of local public support, a coalition of local grassroots organizations successfully petitioned the Alabama Environmental Management Commission to update and strengthen clean water standards across the state. The Commission voted 6-1 in favor of the petition. The change will result in limiting the maximum allowed amounts of 12 toxic and cancer-causing pollutants, including cyanide, hexachloroethane, and 4-trichlorobenzene, in rivers across the state. The change will undoubtedly save lives and improve public well-being.

Local

Recognizing the importance of clean, reliable, safe drinking water to the city’s future, Raleigh, North Carolina, developed its own comprehensive watershed protection plan to protect rivers that supply drinking water to that community.   

The protection plan involves land acquisition and conservation easements to protect private lands in the watershed. To date, the program has protected over 10,000 acres of land and 177 miles of streams. The protection program is self-sufficient, funded by a watershed protection fee of 11¢ per 100 cubic feet of water used.  For the average residential customer, this equates to a charge of about 60¢ per month on their water bill — a fee far lower than would be required to fund the extra water treatment costs if the protections were not in place. Not only does Raleigh’s watershed protection program provide water security and create spaces for parks and recreation, it also saves its customers money and avoids the need for new taxes.
 
Local utilities and municipalities spanning red and blue states across the country from Texas to Arkansas to Ohio and New York and many others are implementing similar programs to protect rivers supplying drinking water to that community.   

Any way you look at it, river protection pays off with a great return on investment for all of us. 

Taking initiative  

No matter where you live, your voice matters in keeping rivers healthy. It is essential to prevent backsliding from the protections we as a country worked so hard to achieve. We don’t want to see a return to the days when rivers like the Cuyahoga literally catch fire due to the level of pollution. Rivers are essential to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to all Americans. People from all different backgrounds and affiliations understand this and are mobilizing to protect rivers across the country.

As the examples above show, this is because the people understand that taking action to protect rivers and the public lands they flow through is indeed a red, white, and blue issue — not a red or blue issue. So regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of where you live, and regardless of your background, please don’t let your eagle’s eye for defense keep you from going on offense to protect what matters to you.

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While much attention goes to what divides us, I think we have more in common than not. That is the lesson from the Yakima River, where government, the Yakama Nation, conservationists and agriculture have united to address urgent water and salmon scarcity in central Washington. It’s a successful model we can apply to the Columbia Basin.

In 2023, the U.S. government, the states of Washington and Oregon, and four tribal nations set aside decades of confrontation over dams, fish conservation, and treaty rights and signed the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement. It was deeply disappointing, then, when the executive memorandum came down last month, withdrawing the federal government from this historic $1 billion commitment to restore the Northwest’s primary river basin.

As a lifelong conservationist, I felt profound loss for the region I love and strive every day to protect. A healthy Columbia Basin is the linchpin of life in the Pacific Northwest. Our clean water, our farms, our energy, our salmon and the 137 known animal species they support, our intertwined local economies – all of this, and more, depend on the river.

Ending this federal investment is a setback, but it doesn’t mean threats to the Columbia and its tributaries, including dams, habitat loss, overharvesting and warm waters, have also disappeared. Where does the Pacific Northwest go from here? Giving up on the Columbia Basin is not an option. We must find another way, rooted in collaboration and shared values.

Occasional increases in salmon returning to the basin are held up as signs of hope, but sadly, they don’t tell the whole story. What matters most for long-term recovery are unique populations of healthy and abundant wild fish. The scientific reality is grim. Returning stocks of Columbia River fish are nowhere near the interim goal of 5 million by 2025, set by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in 1987, let alone the 10 to 16 million wild fish that returned historically.

“Context is important when we’re talking about fish status and facts,” -a fisheries biologist for the Nez Perce Tribe explained at a news conference last month.

Of the 16 salmon and steelhead stocks that once spawned above where Bonneville Dam sits today, four are extinct and seven still listed under the Endangered Species Act. In the Snake River basin, spring/summer stocks of chinook salmon are nearly functionally extinct. These are signs of a continuing crisis. They should motivate all who live, work and depend on these rivers to come together on local solutions.

We know how to restore the Columbia. We have a blueprint based on decades of relationships, knowledge and expertise that addresses thoughtful actions for recovering salmon. At the same time, we must ensure tribes, communities and the farmers who support a multibillion-dollar agricultural industry thrive. Washington state agencies must complete their studies into how services provided by the four dams on the lower Snake River can continue when the dams are breached. The state Legislature directed agencies to plan for service continuity in four areas:

1. Transportation alternatives to wheat barging along the lower Snake
2. Water from a free-flowing river for farms and municipalities
3. River recreation
4. Clean energy projects in lieu of hydropower. So far, these studies show great promise

The reservoir behind Ice Harbor Dam irrigates up to 55,000 acres of farmland, and Lewiston and Clarkston use the reservoir behind Lower Granite Dam for municipal water. A plan by the Department of Ecology shows there will be more than enough water in a free-flowing lower Snake River to cover these needs. Likewise, the Department of Transportation’s initial work on rail and road options for moving wheat from Eastern Washington, Idaho and Oregon looks viable.

Boaters, hikers, fishers, jetboaters, whitewater rafters and the cruise industry provided input to the Recreation and Conservation Office about the benefits and tradeoffs of restoring a free-flowing river. The state’s energy study will be completed in 2026. Given that the four dams on the lower Snake generate just 4% of the region’s total electricity, there is every reason to feel positive about alternatives here, too.

We have work to do in the Columbia. Fortunately, the tribal leadership and the state, community and environmental groundswell remain. It’s up to us to stay connected on a vision for healthy rivers, a strong economy, and vibrant communities. Instead of maintaining status quo in a world that can no longer sustain it, we can reimagine and work toward a thriving region for everyone – now, and for future generations.

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I’m driving from Northern Virginia. No space. Brake lights. Honk honk.  

This winter I got to drive out to the Eastern Shore many times to track the evolution of a river coming back to life. Water flowing. Sun shining. Freedom. YES.  

Most days I sit at my desk. My dog asks what we’re working on today. I tell him we’re saving rivers. Making people safer. Making communities more resilient. He says that looks like a lot of documents and Brady Bunch (he’s old school). He’s right.

But this winter, oh boy! Out to the mythical “field”! This is what we’re working for. Transformation. Rejuvenation. Living. Breathing.  

The day I went out after the river was finally reconnected, I felt like an idiot walking by myself with a big stupid grin, bopping along with my muddy, happy feet. We did it! Years of work lead up to this moment. This future.

I couldn’t help but think back through the hurdles to get to this moment.  

This project didn’t start with me; it started with Serena McClain, who is now the leader of our National Dam Removal Program, but who at that time was in the trenches. We were working on wrapping up the Bloede Dam removal project, and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources had another dam in another state park that they were thinking about removing— Cypress Branch Dam in Cypress Branch State Park in Millington. 

While this is a newer state park, the dam was old and busted. You had to wander around in the woods to find it. It was a relic in the milling history of the Eastern Shore. No one really knows who built it and when. More recently, it had become breached, but was still keeping fish from migrating upstream to spawn and disrupting normal river functions. Hence, the motivation to look into removing it. It checked all the boxes: 

• Not serving a useful purpose ✅
• Public safety hazard ✅
• Impacting fish passage and river function ✅
• Falling apart ✅

Serena got things started in 2019 with the Maryland Geological Survey who did some investigations on sediment. If you follow rivers in the Chesapeake region at all, you KNOW sediment is a big topic of conversation. Where’s the sediment coming from? Where is it going? What do we do about it? And on and on until I’m buried six feet under.  

I digress. Fortunately, the sediment experts determined that there was no contaminated sediment at this site, and the volumes were fairly low because the dam had been breached for some time already. So, not a big concern, which was great.  

Fortunately, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was an early supporter and funder of the project. They saw the potential to reconnect more than 35 miles of habitat for herring, hickory shad, and other species, and they dove right in with us. 

Next, an engineering firm, Princeton Hydro, was hired to pull together design drawings. They got rolling along… and then the pandemic hit. What day is it again? Ugh.  

Things start to move again… then we had some design disagreements. I love having good partners and working with good contractors. Everyone is invested in making the project the best it can be, with the most positive impact for the system. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone always agrees on the path to get there. So sometimes we have to wade through the process, compromise, and eventually find the path forward.  

I stepped in as Project Manager in the middle of this wallowing period. Determined to shake this thing loose and get to the finish line. We move a step forward. 

Now, I’ve talked about this in the past— one problem with projects that float around for a while is that other problems can arise as time goes on. In this case, the cost of construction work popped right up after the pandemic. I realized that we were not going to have enough funding to make it through construction. We needed some more dough.  

Fortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency, by way of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, agreed to help us out with a generous grant. Awesome! Back on track. 

Just need the final permits. Negotiating. Still waiting. Need to figure out historical mitigation. More negotiating. More waiting. Need an adaptive management plan. What’s that? An adaptive management plan is more or less a plan for if things do not go as expected. Who makes decisions? What triggers actions? We figured these things out. We worked with our partners and regulators to decide on a plan for follow-up post-project. We received our permits. Whew. 

In the midst of these permit negotiations, there are rumblings about a problematic railroad crossing that bypasses the park and incidentally our construction access road. Do I know anything about railroads? Really not much more than I’ve learned from Thomas the Tank Engine. So, we go back and forth about what to do with this crossing. We don’t want to damage things with our heavy equipment. Eventually, we decide that we can use mats to cross it and then work towards a plan to rehabilitate it while construction is ongoing.   

In Fall 2024, we hired an environmental construction company, Ecotone, to do the work on the ground. We hope to go to construction in December. We need to get some shop drawings (i.e., detailed plans for a specific element of the design) approved before we can do that. It is right in the middle of the holidays. Deck the halls and all that. More waiting.  

Finally, we are able to break ground in mid-January! And there was much rejoicing… until… we have a new federal administration. And federal grants are being paused. And my anxiety shoots through the roof. Will today be the day we lose our funding? Tomorrow? Court cases. Temporary reprieves. Will we make it?  

The thing about these projects is that they are akin to a massive surgery. You get to a certain point where the guts are all out, and you just can’t go back. The only way is to keep moving forward.  

Fortunately, our grants did not get paused. And we got the guts all put back, this time in the right places without a clogged artery.  

And it is beautiful. And cool! 

We installed some very neat root wad structures to stabilize the river banks. It’s like nature reaching out with its creepy fingers. We removed all the concrete from the former spillway and moved around parts of the earthen portion of the dam. We also realigned the channel which had been breaking off into different sections to make its way around the spillway. It was an odd site to photograph from the ground before the removal, so I am sharing some aerial images to help give a sense of the restoration effort. 

Did we ever figure out what to do with the railroad crossing? Oh yes, indeed. We came to an agreement right near the end of construction. Thanks to a funding supplement from Maryland Department of Natural Resources, we were able to fix that crossing right up while on our way out of the site.  

We also received a bit more funding support from RJN Foundation to round things out at the end. I am so grateful to all of our funders for their support.  

Shortly after the final plantings were completed, I revisited the site to see how things were adjusting. This osprey seemed to be enjoying itself quite thoroughly in the former impoundment! What a lunch! 

And there you have it. Another one bites the dust. Huzzah! 

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Do you notice little changes along with big ones? Do the animals tell a story? Does the water share its secrets?

How does public funding investment help to restore rivers?

American Rivers has been working with a group of experts along the Patapsco River in Maryland for more than a decade to answer these very questions. It has been a monumental group effort to document the river’s response to dam removal in terms of changes to biology and physical structure.

The process of monitoring the Patapsco River started back in 2009 before the Union and Simkins dams were removed (2010 and 2011) and continued through the removal of Bloede Dam in 2018. Monitoring the river was required by regulators for five years following completion of each project to track any changes to the river and its aquatic communities.

The main goals of these dam removal projects were to:

• Reconnect historic migration routes for fish species moving between saltwater and freshwater
• Provide access to upstream spawning and rearing habitat for migratory and resident aquatic species
• Eliminate a documented public safety hazard and attractive nuisance

Monitoring the river allowed us to figure out if our projects goals were met and to ensure nothing crazy happened as a result of the dam removals.

We considered questions like— what will happen to the native fish if we remove these dams? Will migratory fish be able to access spawning habitat upstream? Will the tiny critters known as benthic macroinvertebrates (essentially, water bugs) experience any changes as a result of habitat alterations?

We also considered what would happen to sediment and water flow if these dams were removed. We contemplated questions like— how fast will the sediment leave the former impoundments and move downstream? Where will the sediment go and what will be left behind? Aquatic animals live in and on the sediment, and they may look for certain sediments for spawning, so these queries impact them as well.

I am happy to share that through the extensive monitoring effort, American Rivers and our partners have determined that the objectives of this dam removal project were achieved.

American Rivers has compiled our Patapsco River Restoration Project Research into one easy to access page: https://www.americanrivers.org/patapsco-river-restoration-project-research/. This page illustrates the depth and breadth of the vast amount of knowledge that was gained from this publicly funded effort. We plan to continue updating the site as more data and articles are published.

Key Takeaways

Biological Monitoring

• Some species of migrating fish, including alewife and blueback herring, are making their way above the former Bloede Dam and spawning. MBSS even noted that nine species known previously to only be observed downstream of the Bloede Dam were observed upstream.
• Egg/larvae sampling results further verified that blueback herring actively spawned in the restored reach above Bloede Dam in 2024.
• Both alewife and blueback herring environmental DNA (eDNA— these are little bits of genetic material that living things leave behind in the water) was detected at sites upstream of Bloede Dam after the dam’s removal, but not before.
• American eel spread out once the Bloede Dam was removed and were climbing the eel ladder at Daniels Dam in droves.
• Benthic macroinvertebrates and resident fish seemed to recover fairly quickly after the completion of the project.

Physical Monitoring

• The physical (or geomorphic) changes to the river followed what was predicted by researchers based on site-specific modeling and monitoring results at other dam removal sites.
• The vast majority of sediment within the Bloede Dam impoundment evacuated within the first year post-removal.
• The sediment was observed moving downstream relatively quickly and causing no significant problems downstream. The river came to resemble a more natural system once again.

If you would like to dig a bit deeper into the findings of the monitoring efforts (but maybe don’t have time to read the full reports), check out this page.

What Happens Now

It’s important, especially in cases of such a significant investment of effort and public funds, to share these results with the broader community of researchers, practitioners, and regulators. Consequently, American Rivers and our partners have been presenting on this project at conferences and other events. We will be sharing a series of conversations on this project with our National Dam Removal Community of Practice in June. You can register here.

Our partners at MBSS are working on a collection of articles for publication exploring the response of different species to the removal of the dams. Our partners at USGS are working on their second publication highlighting the sediment response to the Bloede Dam removal. A series of other publications have already been produced and can be found here. As more publications come out, we will post them to that page.

In addition, we are now talking with Maryland DNR and the broader community surrounding Patapsco Valley State Park about potentially removing the upstream Daniels Dam. Those conversations will be ongoing this year as we work through a feasibility study and community engagement process. We offer an abundance of gratitude to our funders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for supporting this long-term monitoring project. Public investment in river restoration is critical to ensuring that healthy rivers are supported for the benefit of all.

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One of those river critters is the bank swallow, whose Latin name of Riparia riparia doubles down on this fellow’s connection to rivers. Avid birders living in southern New England may have followed the dramatic late summer murmuration of the tree swallows that congregate by the hundreds of thousands in the river’s estuary to rest and feed before their southern migration. This murmuration has been celebrated by Roger Tory Peterson as one of the most dramatic natural events he ever experienced. 

The bank swallow does not attend that particular avian party in the Connecticut River’s estuary. Riparia riparia is also a social species that nests in colonies they seem to prefer smaller and less dramatic but still noticeable gatherings a bit farther upstream on the Connecticut River.    

I spend a lot of time on the Connecticut River north of my home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, including many special trips along the stretch between Lemington, Vermont and Lancaster, New Hampshire. This stretch includes many miles of meanders north of the reaches impounded by hydropower dams. There are many places along the entire river to spot bank swallows, but I have had wonderful visits with these tiny birds in this reach. The gradual bends and turns of the meanders are great places to spot bank swallows. The eroding banks created by energy of water moving around the meander curves exposes the soft and friable alluvium that makes the Connecticut River valley soils so productive. It is easy to spot the dozens of small entrance holes to the bank swallow nests as you round a corner. And while the outside of river bends are always eroding, the inside bends usually provide a wonderful beach from which you can sit and watch the aerial ballet. And at certain times of years if you watch the nests carefully you can see the chicks waiting in the doorway for a food delivery from mom (or dad?). 

The bank swallows are the smallest species of swallow and have the characteristic angular wing and tail shape of the swallow family with a similar tawny coloration to many of their cousins. They are not as brightly colored as the blue-green of the tree swallow, but they are fetching enough I say. If you have had a chance to stop and watch the bank swallows dart, swoop, dive, and swerve just over the surface of the water you’ve seen these little birds in their glory. Their strength and grace in pursuit of one tiny insect after another is a humbling reminder of the effort these birds make to survive and thrive. 

The experts say that the population is healthy, which is good news. Part of the reason for that healthy population is the abundant riverine habitat along the banks of the Connecticut and other alluvial river systems.   

That however is a good news / bad news story.   

While alluvial river systems like the Connecticut River naturally erode and move and meander around their flood plains, humans have artificially increased bank swallow habitat by cutting down the bankside floodplain forests for agriculture, development, and views. The loss of riparian forests accelerates bank erosion, particularly the loss of the majestic silver maples with root systems able to hold together our friable soils. So while the bank swallows can easily adjust to an eroding bank by digging out a deeper or newer cavity, fixing eroding banks that eat away prime agricultural soils or eventually undermine houses and structures is not an easy fix. A healthy riparian forest allows a river to move at its own pace which creates abundant natural bank swallow habitat while protecting human homes. These little birds with little brains have evolved to succeed with healthy riparian forests.   

With our big brains and creativity, we can too. 

Here’s to the strength and dynamic energy of the bank swallow, a successful resident of our river valleys. I pay homage to those same characteristics that I see in the many human residents working on behalf of rivers everywhere to make them a better place for everyone and everything. 

A version of this blog was first published in the Winter 2024 edition of Estuary, a quarterly magazine for people who care about the Connecticut River; its history, health, and ecology—present and future. Find out how you can subscribe at estuarymagainze. com 

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