Habitat projects

[silverfox]

Went on a tour of the remnants of habitat projects on Bob's Creek and Wallacks branch yesterday. It's interesting to me seeing the remnants of these things that were built 20 years ago. There's little left at this point aside from oddly stacked rocks, rusty rebar and nails, sheet plastic, and some rotted wood. In just about every case, the stream is likely worse off now than before they were built.

There are remnants of four different "stream improvement" projects in this photo.

Below is what the one closest to the camera looked like when it was built. It choked the stream down and used a plank deck covered in sheet plastic to creat a plunge pool. The log vane just upstream (completely gone except for some very sharp rebar sticking out of the bank) ended up deflecting the stream over to where the hemlock tree is undercut. There was a deflector there originally, but when it failed, it just undercut that hemlock. After the wood rotted and a good flood came through, it wiped out what was left of the decking and most of the plastic sheeting (that's somewhere downstream) and blew out the rock vane on the right side. Most of the rocks from the right vane are now in what used to be the plunge pool created by this dam. The entire stretch below where the dam was is ankle deep. I'd say this thing did absolutely nothing in the end except litter the stream with rusty rebar, nails and plastic and caused the premature demise of a good sized hemlock.

There are rusty nails sticking up out of this piece of wood the whole way across the stream.

Further upstream is this monument to our engineering prowess. There used to be a natural log jam at the head of this. That got compromised by chainsaws and some new fancy log vanes and J hooks installed. What's hilarious (sad) about this is that the stream decided to break through where the log jam used to be and so now the main channel is on the right out of view, and what used to be the main channel with its bank armoring is now just a side channel. I guess those logs might do something when it floods, but based on what I'm seeing, this channel will be dry in a year or two and the stream wont even get near it when it floods. i.e., this was a huge waste of money.

What amazes me is the number of these things. There's some form of wood and stone contraption about every 50 yards in some places for what seems like a good mile or two.

Over on Wallacks it's no better. These rock sculptures sure convey a sense of being in a natural environment. Nobody would ever imagine a human did this.

Another good example of the stream deciding to do something other than what humans thought it would do. This used to be the main channel. I don't understand how this kind of thing is permitted. IF it were flowing, these things act like fish passage barriers. I used to catch brook trout on Wallacks branch. While anecdotal, it sure seems like the disappearance of brook trout coincided with the arrival of these "Improvement" structures. They made ambush habitat for brown trout and ensured any brook trout trying to swim up past here would be trapped in the pool is what they did.

I thought the projects above were outdated and nobody would build things like that anymore. I guess I was wrong. This is right at Burnt House park. The old jack dam failed and I was happy about that. I hated that thing. It was another fish passage barrier. The drop from where the deck was to the pool below was too high. Again, it created an ambush habitat. I believe there is a photo somewhere of a team electro-fishing this and there was an 18 inch brown trout in that hole at one point. I was pretty disappointed to see that it had been rebuilt very recently and is now worse than before. Whoever did this also threw a bunch of rocks in to build a dam right below the cross vane. How is this permitted?

No planting, no topsoil, just a bunch of rock on the bank. They also hauled in a bunch of larger pieces of limestone to reinforce the double sills. Why are we still doing this? Temp on Wallacks was exactly 60.

 

[troutbert]

Those types of structures do have a high failure rate. I've often seen their battered remains. I doubt they prevent fish movement because the vertical drop is low. In high flows the fish will move right up over them.

How do you think habitat should be managed on these types of streams?

 

[silverfox]

Those types of structures do have a high failure rate. I've often seen their battered remains. I doubt they prevent fish movement because the vertical drop is low. In high flows the fish will move right up over them.

How do you think habitat should be managed on these types of streams?

The big ones on Bob’s used to have a sheet of plastic covering the deck so they were virtually impenetrable (all that plastic is now strewn throughout the stream). There’s one there where the vertical drop during low flows had to be 14”-18”.

Frankly, they should be left alone in most cases. The one that I drew on top of the stream probably right back to exactly what it was before. So that contraption might have created a scour pool for the 20 years it was in existence until the wood rotted.

If anything, large woody debris. Chop n drop. Wood that can move around. The rebar pinning things in place is stupid.

https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3798

 

[silverfox]

All of these things were made to create more pool habitat to support stocked trout. I don’t care what other excuses anyone cooks up. Knowing the outfits involved, that’s exactly what they were installed for. In a stream that used to support a pretty healthy brook trout population.

I’d love to see PFBC survey Bob’s and wallacks to compare to past surveys.

 

[JeffP]

You have to see the dam at the lower Quitty Tiki Bar! All the old stream improvement projects on the Segloch are long gone. I do remember catching brookies below the jack dams. But I guess that was when there were actually brookies in the Segloch.

 

[caddisflyer]

Can anyone point me to any stream improvement projects that are ten years old or older that have actually worked?

 

[Fish Sticks]

I toured all these projects with silverfox that day and it was incredible how bad they screwed these creeks up. I cannot restate enough that these streams were 59-60 on the dot at lunch time in hot august weather and used to wild native brook trout prior to being “restored” to death. Its clear from the projects the goal was to create 4 foot deep holes on small mountain streams that would never have had that kind of habitat. And we know what creating deep overhanging ambush points in a stream that has some level of brown trout infestation does, they use that deep habitat to grow and ambush brookies then it fails in 5-10 years and your left with brook trout sized brown trout for the most part.

 

[Tups]

Many of these improvement projects are sponsored by well intentioned TU chapters and permitted by the PADEP, neither of which have extensive backgrounds in geomorphology, hydrology or geotech. In those cases, I agree with Silverfox, they usually fail for lack of pre-project stream data. But gathering such data is generally very expensive and time consuming.

Other projects are required by the PADEP as mitigation for stream impacts associated with highway work at other locations ( not on- site impacts). The mitigation projects generally have a better track record because the data is collected before the plan is made. However, even when the data is available it is difficult to predict just how a stream will behave in the future. Some apparent successes are the McCoy Dam removal on Spring Creek and the Tea Creek dam removal, both of which were PADOT projects. The difference is that PADOT has the staff and engineering expertise to collect the geotechnical and hydrological data necessary to increase the likelihood of success.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Dam removals are usually good. It can leave some rough stream conditions behind it but thermal benefits and and connectivity to native fish and amphibians almost always outweighs the tall eroding legacy sediment banks that will hopefully be remedied by the original project.

Dam removal frees a streams path and these structures/engineered habitat seek to foolishly attempt to control a streams path which is naturally dynamic and ahifting.


Creating a flood plain and letting the trees falling shift the streams course within that flood plain over time is pretty much the only equipment in the ground type restoration thats worth the time and money in my opinion. Its the only one that accounts for a streams dynamic nature

 

[silverfox]

Many of these improvement projects are sponsored by well intentioned TU chapters and permitted by the PADEP, neither of which have extensive backgrounds in geomorphology, hydrology or geotech. In those cases, I agree with Silverfox, they usually fail for lack of pre-project stream data. But gathering such data is generally very expensive and time consuming.

Other projects are required by the PADEP as mitigation for stream impacts associated with highway work at other locations ( not on- site impacts). The mitigation projects generally have a better track record because the data is collected before the plan is made. However, even when the data is available it is difficult to predict just how a stream will behave in the future. Some apparent successes are the McCoy Dam removal on Spring Creek and the Tea Creek dam removal, both of which were PADOT projects. The difference is that PADOT has the staff and engineering expertise to collect the geotechnical and hydrological data necessary to increase the likelihood of success.

I agree. I also doubt the impact on individual species is either A) considered, or B) well understood by these practitioners. In some cases, especially where infrastructure or sediment reduction are the priorities, even if species preferences were to be considered, they'd likely be overridden by project goals. So it's just an unfortunate side effect of larger environmental goals. I've always suspected the "habitat work" on Bob's might have been a contributing factor in the perceived decline in brook trout there. More recently, research has emerged that justifies that theory (deep pool/undercut lunker bunkers benefit brown trout to the brook trout's peril).

The projects on Bob's Creek might be defensible from a sediment reduction standpoint. Wallacks Branch on the other hand... Those habitat structures should've never been built. They're entirely unnatural for that stream. Nothing like those dams would've ever been formed by nature. I've begged and pleaded with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to do a follow-up fish survey there to no avail. From what I can see, nobody has conducted a post-project survey to document the impact.

There is data from surveys going back to 1992 when brook trout were still somewhat abundant in the stream. The worst part about the Wallacks structures is they were partially funded through a grant from the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture with the stated goal of improving brook trout habitat. I've unsuccessfully tried multiple times in the past 2-3 years to catch a brook trout anywhere below the Burnt House picnic area. That wasn't a difficult task 10 years ago. It used to be a spot where I would almost guarantee you could catch one within a few minutes.

According to PFBC, "Through 2024, when practical, the PFBC will preferentially manage for wild Brook Trout, such as the management approach applied to Big Spring Creek, Cumberland County where habitat improvements were successfully designed to favor wild Brook Trout over wild Rainbow Trout." This most recent reconstruction of the uppermost jack dam on Wallacks doesn't appear to match designs for low flow channels (brookie jack). I don't know whether PFBC was involved in this recent reconstruction, but they should be reviewing every permit for this kind of work and denying plans that don't benefit brook trout (according to the Trout Management Plan).

 

[Fish Sticks]

I agree. I also doubt the impact on individual species is either A) considered, or B) well understood by these practitioners. In some cases, especially where infrastructure or sediment reduction are the priorities, even if species preferences were to be considered, they'd likely be overridden by project goals. So it's just an unfortunate side effect of larger environmental goals. I've always suspected the "habitat work" on Bob's might have been a contributing factor in the perceived decline in brook trout there. More recently, research has emerged that justifies that theory (deep pool/undercut lunker bunkers benefit brown trout to the brook trout's peril).

The projects on Bob's Creek might be defensible from a sediment reduction standpoint. Wallacks Branch on the other hand... Those habitat structures should've never been built. They're entirely unnatural for that stream. Nothing like those dams would've ever been formed by nature. I've begged and pleaded with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to do a follow-up fish survey there to no avail. From what I can see, nobody has conducted a post-project survey to document the impact.

There is data from surveys going back to 1992 when brook trout were still somewhat abundant in the stream. The worst part about the Wallacks structures is they were partially funded through a grant from the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture with the stated goal of improving brook trout habitat. I've unsuccessfully tried multiple times in the past 2-3 years to catch a brook trout anywhere below the Burnt House picnic area. That wasn't a difficult task 10 years ago. It used to be a spot where I would almost guarantee you could catch one within a few minutes.

According to PFBC, "Through 2024, when practical, the PFBC will preferentially manage for wild Brook Trout, such as the management approach applied to Big Spring Creek, Cumberland County where habitat improvements were successfully designed to favor wild Brook Trout over wild Rainbow Trout." This most recent reconstruction of the uppermost jack dam on Wallacks doesn't appear to match designs for low flow channels (brookie jack). I don't know whether PFBC was involved in this recent reconstruction, but they should be reviewing every permit for this kind of work and denying plans that don't benefit brook trout (according to the Trout Management Plan).

Just another lie in a PDF file on their part. Lol on paper their removing brown trout from some brook trout streams(adding in real life), surveying where brown trout are replacing brook trout(hasn’t happened), preferentially managing for brook trout as mentioned, reintroducing brook trout to increase population by 8%( ya have to stop putting invasive fish in for that one before you start).

The problem with PFBC is if the project is GP-1 or general permit -1, it just gets rubber stamped no matter how much of a bad idea it is

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

I toured all these projects with silverfox that day and it was incredible how bad they screwed these creeks up. I cannot restate enough that these streams were 59-60 on the dot at lunch time in hot august weather and used to wild native brook trout prior to being “restored” to death. Its clear from the projects the goal was to create 4 foot deep holes on small mountain streams that would never have had that kind of habitat. And we know what creating deep overhanging ambush points in a stream that has some level of brown trout infestation does, they use that deep habitat to grow and ambush brookies then it fails in 5-10 years and your left with brook trout sized brown trout for the most part.

For the record, I'm very familiar with both Bobs Creek and its tributary Wallacks Branch Creek. In July 2023 I caught 45 native brookies in Bobs Creek. A quick look at my fishing records also reveals that on September 10, 2022, I caught 15 native brookies in WBC, including some not far from its mouth. The smallest brookie was 1.5" long and the largest native brookies were two 8"ers and two 8.5"ers.

Bobs Creek has lots of pools that are untouched by man that are four feet or more deep. There are a few that are even six to seven feet deep in the headwaters. To characterize Bobs Creek as a small mountain stream that would never have natural pools that are four feet or more deep is, well, promoting a falsehood.

 

[Fish Sticks]

For the record, I'm very familiar with both Bobs Creek and its tributary Wallacks Branch Creek. In July 2023 I caught 45 native brookies in Bobs Creek. A quick look at my fishing records also reveals that on September 10, 2022, I caught 15 native brookies in WBC, including some not far from its mouth. The smallest brookie was 1.5" long and the largest native brookies were two 8"ers and two 8.5"ers.

Bobs Creek has lots of pools that are untouched by man that are four feet or more deep. There are a few that are even six to seven feet deep in the headwaters. To characterize Bobs Creek as a small mountain stream that would never have natural pools that are four feet or more deep is, well, promoting a falsehood.

I was referring to the section well above pavia where alot of these projects are. Not the kids section or other downstream habitat. There would have never been as many pools as deep as the jack damn projects.

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

I was referring to the section well above pavia where alot of these projects are. Not the kids section or other downstream habitat. There would have never been as many pools as deep as the jack damn projects.

I, too, was referring to the section on Bobs Creek above Pavia.

There is no "kid's section" on Bobs Creek. You must be thinking of some other stream.

So now that I caught you in a couple "falsehoods" (I use that word to be kind) you move the target and say, "There would have never been AS MANY pools as deep as the jack damn projects." Well, on this we can agree because even if there was only one jackdam with a deep plunge pool, which we can assume would likely have been built in an area with little good habitat, your statement would be correct. Unfortunately, that's not what you originally said or wanted people to believe. You were characterizing Bobs Creek as a small, shallow mountain stream that would favor native brook trout because it would have no pools over four feet deep, and then man came along and created deep pools which favored brown trout, and that's why there are no native brook trout in the stream today. I was just pointing out that your characterization of Bobs Creek is incorrect because there are lots of natural pools over four feet deep and also quite a few native brook trout as my fishing statistics proved.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Can some one with pictures of the childrens fishing section on bobs please post for poor Frank over here so he doesn’t get nailed by a WCO

 

[Fish Sticks]

Frank nothing i have said is false youve just waded too far into a topic you onow nothing about. Enlighten us on the reference condition on bobs creek, your evidence for that condition, and then I will tell you my evidence for a reference condition and maybe you will read on this stuff first next time

 

[silverfox]

I, too, was referring to the section on Bobs Creek above Pavia.

There is no "kid's section" on Bobs Creek. You must be thinking of some other stream.

So now that I caught you in a couple "falsehoods" (I use that word to be kind) you move the target and say, "There would have never been AS MANY pools as deep as the jack damn projects." Well, on this we can agree because even if there was only one jackdam with a deep plunge pool, which we can assume would likely have been built in an area with little good habitat, your statement would be correct. Unfortunately, that's not what you originally said or wanted people to believe. You were characterizing Bobs Creek as a small, shallow mountain stream that would favor native brook trout because it would have no pools over four feet deep, and then man came along and created deep pools which favored brown trout, and that's why there are no native brook trout in the stream today. I was just pointing out that your characterization of Bobs Creek is incorrect because there are lots of natural pools over four feet deep and also quite a few native brook trout as my fishing statistics proved.

There most certainly is a children-only fishing area on Bob's Creek. It's right here: 40.216104063296726, -78.5601880411633 Do you need me to take photos of the signs this evening?

Now that I've caught you in that falsehood, I suspect that your reported catch rates are a falsehood as well. So tell us from your ledgers how many brown trout you caught on this day that you caught 45 brook trout. I bet you won't, because it will confirm the point that I made. Or you'll lie about it so it looks like I'm wrong. Of course, if you say you caught 45 brook trout, knowing how you like to boast about numbers, I highly doubt you'd admit to only catching 45 trout. Again, proving that brook trout have been severely reduced in numbers in this watershed.

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

Can anyone point me to any stream improvement projects that are ten years old or older that have actually worked?

For me, the jury's still out on wing-dams. I expect that replacement of above-grade with below-grade culverts provides some benefit to upstream migration for spawning. I feel some of the best improvements are planting AND maintaining shrubs/trees on the shorelines and agriculture/livestock barriers (which have nothing to do with the streambeds.)

 

[Fish Sticks]

For me, the jury's still out on wing-dams. I expect that replacement of above-grade with below-grade culverts provides some benefit to upstream migration for spawning. I feel some of the best improvements are planting AND maintaining shrubs/trees on the shorelines and agriculture/livestock barriers (which have nothing to do with the streambeds.)

And the cheapest!

 

[Fish Sticks]

Its quite obvious that on bobs creek there are multiple dewatered channels in the flood plain. These are far far away from these single thread, once deep prior to project failure, unnatural channels in many cases. Also there are blind channels that seem to come out of no where from the backside of islands that split the stream in two. They are formed by wood cutting off a channel and accumulating sediment in the upstream side.

This is all evidence that wood falling on the flood plain causes this stream to water and dewater multiple channels created by large wood dynamically. This is why you have a-lot of dry project reaches. The stream was and will be much more of a braided/anastomosing,shallower on average, multi channel stream rather than a deep incised plunge pool stream which is what the jack dams simulate.

This dynamic nature creating multiple shallower dynamic channels rather than single deep incised channel is the reason in fact these terrible structures failed.

there never would have been all those deep incised plunge pools the structures mimic LIKE I SAID lol