Lancaster County stream improvements

Larkmark, what part of the Hammer do you think was bad? Or do you mean all improvements on it?
 
One not too far above turnpike for one.
 
If I'm thinking of the one you're talking about, I believe the landowner did that one. The ones between the 2 mills seem to have created some great holes and have grown up nicely. Too bad it's below Speedwell. I really think lower Hammer is pretty bad. It stays dirty for a long time after a rain and that water must just boil in the summer. They did a lot of work(not recently) from Lincoln Road to Carpenter Road on down through to the next bridge. Just not sure it's helped much.
 
Pretty obvious the sandstone patio was not a restoration project but a landowner improvement.

Wasn't Peters Creek the pipeline and not a project unless I am mistaken and the reference is to something else.

Overall Lancaster County getting riparian buffers and fencing for livestock would help dramatically. If one wants to get real perspective to some of the great projects in Lancaster over the years that were a real success talk with Matt the Watershed Specialist for Lancaster County.
Way more good than bad.
Aside from plain sect farmers leaving, I cant see a negative to buffers and fencing and anyone that would is just biased for some reason.
 
I said Octoraro but meant Conowingo...above Cardinal Rd. That section had the right habitat for bigger fish 20 yrs ago. The instream work caused those areas to silt in. Overall the in stream devices seem to move silt into the naturally occurring habitat from what I have seen. I am of course in favor of fencing and any kinds of buffers. I am not so sure dam removal is a plus in every case.
What do I know though....I am really speaking from the point of view of good trout fishing. I have no real big picture in mind perhaps.
 
People might be surprised to know how many limestone creeks are in Lancaster County. Unfortunately almost all of them are polluted and have no trout.
 
If I think back to before the in stream improvement projects many of these places had deep holes and undercut banks that held bigger wild fish, many surprisingly nice sized. The improvements I have seen were made of wood and stone and we're intended to narrow stream and also create hiding places alongside them. There was also some digging directly into stream bed with a back hoe to deepen areas. Before the projects I would regularly catch fish. After the projects the fish were always smaller and less numerous and I never caught anything bigger than 12" or so. In some cases the wild trout seemed to disappear altogether from those sections with in stream improvement. Gradually the deeper areas both in the improved sections and directly downstream from the improvement filled in with silt. This occurred in at least 3 stream sections on 3 streams that I fished regularly. I can't speak to how these devices work on other streams although I have come across them in places including Cross Fork Creek and saw similar bad results for the trout habitat and fishing. They do need to be maintained too. Over time the wood eventually rots etc. I am no expert just expressing my experience. I am all for planting trees and making barriers for cows and any kind of buffers. If anyone can describe a Lancaster County in stream project that was successful I am all ears. By the way I actually worked on several of these projects as a volunteer and also as a paid employee of government many years ago. I certainly had hoped for better outcomes.
 
I can think of two.
I believe Lititz Run was a success. Certainly as far as water quality and habitat. It was barren of both long ago.

The other is a wild trout stream I had the pleasure to fish, pre restoration and post. It has some very nice browns in it but the majority of it is posted so there is that angle too.
Not willing to name it though.
 
I think many of the smaller projects in Lancaster county did not help a lot. I do remember catching brookies at most of the jack dams on the Segloch but they are gone and I am pretty sure they not helpful at all with health of the stream. I spent a decent amount of time on smaller projects including the one on the Landis Farm. Those looked bad but did create a bit of temporary habitat. Later TU had a professional project done. i hadn't been back for a while, I fished it last spring. It looked good, with plenty of trout in that stretch. I'm not sure what impact the professional improvement had. It may have been more the stream bank fencing that helped.
 
Of course because Seglochs issues are entirely two fold.
Sandstone and browns.
In stream habitat is nothing more than a feel good measure. Of course those projects were done long ago (40's I think), long before I believe they understood the scope of stream restoration science and diagnosing problems.
 
2 stretches of the lower Hammer look pretty good. There are lots of deep swirling holes with lots of cover. Being impacted by Speedwell I'm not sure how much it helps. There is decent bass fishing but the locals claim its gone downhill. And I don't even think they stocked this section the last 2 years. It is nice looking water.

The section from Lincoln road downstream I'm not really sure about, but like upstream the water definitely is deeper with pretty good holes. I guess it's made the fishing for stockers better.

I would have to say the Lititz Run project was a success. I look at all the development in the immediate area and that can't be good. All that work but you're going to allow huge megachurches, new roads, and huge developments.
 
larkmark wrote:
If I think back to before the in stream improvement projects many of these places had deep holes and undercut banks that held bigger wild fish, many surprisingly nice sized. The improvements I have seen were made of wood and stone and we're intended to narrow stream and also create hiding places alongside them. There was also some digging directly into stream bed with a back hoe to deepen areas. Before the projects I would regularly catch fish. After the projects the fish were always smaller and less numerous and I never caught anything bigger than 12" or so. In some cases the wild trout seemed to disappear altogether from those sections with in stream improvement. Gradually the deeper areas both in the improved sections and directly downstream from the improvement filled in with silt. This occurred in at least 3 stream sections on 3 streams that I fished regularly. I can't speak to how these devices work on other streams although I have come across them in places including Cross Fork Creek and saw similar bad results for the trout habitat and fishing. They do need to be maintained too. Over time the wood eventually rots etc. I am no expert just expressing my experience. I am all for planting trees and making barriers for cows and any kind of buffers. If anyone can describe a Lancaster County in stream project that was successful I am all ears. By the way I actually worked on several of these projects as a volunteer and also as a paid employee of government many years ago. I certainly had hoped for better outcomes.
Click to expand...


If a stream has deep holes and undercut banks to begin with, it's best to protect the riparian vegetation, and otherwise leave it alone. The stream is creating good habitat features on its own.

What justification did they give for doing these alterations, if deep pools and cover were present?

 
I never noticed any instream habitat work on Fishing Ck in Drumore Park. I was only there in 2018 or 2017. I was not really focused on Fishing Ck, however, but I noticed some interesting natural rocky habitat at the upstream end of the park.

As for Peters Ck, I was only aware of a major instream project in the stretch between the bridges just up from the slack-water of the Susquehanna. That stretch needed improvement/ stabilization due to erosion and channel destruction associated with heavy stormwater disturbance from Peters and Puddleduck Cks. A large boulder that was at the base of the embankment when I was a kid now was resting center channel, indicating how much the stream channel had shifted over a period of 60 yrs due to erosion. No pools were present. I only saw some photos of the work and have not visited the stream since the work was done. If the work created some pools or pocket pools, wild BT biomass should improve in that stretch.

As for the Conowingo Ck work near the lower end of the Class A section, I have only driven past it, but it looked pretty good to me in that the planted vegetation was nearly completely shading the stream channel. Long ago I had requested that habitat work be done there and downstream in an effort to extend the Class A population farther downstream. I don’t know if that work had anything to do with my request.
 
Mike and others-
The work I was thinking of on Conowingo is upstream from Cardinal drive. I know there is also a private section down from there that TU did some work on a few yrs back. I don't know how that has done.
The work in Drumore Park looked good but in about 5 trips there at different times of yr I did not see or catch a trout. It was a place I could rely on for some fish prior to improvement. There were natural hiding spots around trees along bank. Some undercuts and natural holes were in that section. The improvements seemed hopeful and did create some additional deep areas and move the water faster but also caused some existing holes to silt in. The rocky structure at upper end while it looks good is a shallow place and has never held fish in my experience. There was some plantings done that could be good in a few years.
I haven't visited Lititz Run in a while. I assume it is still suffering from treatment plant discharge. I do not think it holds any wild fish. I have never been on the big private section upstream. I do remember evidence of work with exposed stone in the fly fishing area in the meadows.
The areas on Peters have not fared well. All that improvement area is filled with gravel and sand now. It also has filled in areas around bridge and below that were deeper. The areas up stream where the two creeks meet are also very shallow now. This is upstream from improvement. The close proximity of all the roads to the creek seems to be the problem there.
 
Lititz has wild fish but in very low numbers. Very low.

If all fairness lititz run restoration had little to do with fish habitat and everything to do with reducing nitrate and phosphorus from the water.
It had a dramatic impact and I don't really feel like searching for the numbers. I think it was to the tune of around 30 to 40 percent reduction.

Unfortunately the krast aquifer is polluted by the farms between Manheim and Lititz in the underground headwaters. If farming ended today it would likely be hundreds of years before fish eggs are viable enough to create a good wild trout stream.

Conowingo I have the pleasure to fish some of the private areas including the one you discussed. It had more to do with sediment load/ phosphorus and reducing it rather than fish habitat.
http://lancasterwatersheds.org/wp-content/uploads/Conowingo-Creek-Watershed-Implementation-Plan.pdf

Is it possible you are conflating water quality restorations with fish habitat restorations?

Aquatic life and helping the bay goes far beyond the narrow scope of trout and our fishing.
 
Susquehanna, I think you are right. Apparently the two types of restoration don't go hand in hand? All the projects I was involved in from mid 1970s on were always presented as being for benefit of wild trout.
 
Larkmark, stream "restoration" and "habitat improvement" can have very different meanings. As a whole more is learned about the various stream restoration approaches and bank stabilization and fish habitat structures with each project. What you saw in the 70s as far as structural stream improvement is vastly different.

With the huge push to reduce sediment and nutrient runoff some projects have little to any benefit for trout in the form of habitat, but most are improving water quality. There is a design approach called legacy sediment removal/ floodplain restoration that is very intensive and intended to restore streams to pre colonial conditions by raising the streambed, lowering the floodplain and greatly increasing floodplain interaction. This helps improve retention time, increase groundwater recharge, expand riparian wetlands. These projects often involve multiple channels.

These projects have noted water quality and hydrologic benefits, but yo date have most been on small order ag impaired systems in South Central pa. The projects of this nature that I have seen would provide abundant yoy habitat, but likely lack the deep pools often linked to big fish habitat.
 
I think a lot of the work on Lititz Run focused on habitat improvement. I helped a bit with the earlier projects in the Hess Meadow and most for that water was seriously bad. No cover and inches deep.
 
lycoflyfisher wrote:

With the huge push to reduce sediment and nutrient runoff some projects have little to any benefit for trout in the form of habitat, but most are improving water quality. There is a design approach called legacy sediment removal/ floodplain restoration that is very intensive and intended to restore streams to pre colonial conditions by raising the streambed, lowering the floodplain and greatly increasing floodplain interaction. This helps improve retention time, increase groundwater recharge, expand riparian wetlands. These projects often involve multiple channels.
Click to expand...

What projects of this type have been done?

The only ones I know of are: Lititz Run, above the conservancy property.

A small stream near Willow Street, Lancaster County.

I have heard and read that the reason more of these types of projects have not been done is that it's very expensive.

There was some discussion of legacy sediment removal as part of the McCoy Dam removal project on Spring Creek, but people said it's too expensive. Though no cost figure was given, or cost comparison with the project as they did it.

The legacy sediment just upstream from the site of the former dam is roughly 9 feet high.
 
Susquehanna, was this reduction of nitrogen and phosphorous done at the treatment plant or are you talking about farming practices? Why would it take so long to rid an aquifer of pollutants? I have to think that the rapid water temp changes in the summer do to paving would be a huge issue.
 
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