Karen Titus: I hope you consider joining. We'd love to have you in our network. We do offer a lot of really great benefits. Webcasts, of course, lunch and learns discounts on trainings, registrations, and just being part of our network and receiving all of our resources. Our online watershed library and archive webcasts. Most people find really valuable.
Karen Titus: We have well, over 2,000 members now, and if you have questions, or if you want to find out more about it. Of course you can check out our website, or you can feel free just to call me, and I'd be happy to tell you more about it and
Karen Titus: find out if there's a
Karen Titus: something right for you.
Karen Titus: So I'm gonna go ahead. I think I'm gonna get started
Karen Titus: just about one o'clock, so
Karen Titus: thank you again for everybody who's here.
Karen Titus: This is the 3rd webinar in our series, finding common ground.
Karen Titus: and it'll be we have it scheduled from one to 3, wanted to remind everybody that if we see that you're here in attendance you will receive a Pdh. Automatically. I will send it to you
Karen Titus: and all of the resources from today's webcast, and also from the last 2 webcasts that we had webinars that we had. They're on our website. And I'm gonna do that rather than trying to send them all. Which was a huge mistake on my part. There were just way, too many resources. The emails from me, too big a lot of them were just bouncing back. So on our website, you will find all of the resource sheets. Any of the presenters that want to share that information again, if you've shared it already. Thank you. If you haven't. If you want to send it to me as soon as you you can. That'd be great.
Karen Titus: We'll add it to our website. I will just send you the link to our website with the bios for our speakers. The resources
Karen Titus: and the link, the recorded link. I will also send you. The only thing you'll get separately from me, of course, is a pdh, if you were here.
Karen Titus: and then, of course, I already mentioned membership. But if you just joined and you didn't get to hear, my little spiel. I hope that you consider joining our network. We have a really wonderful network of people here, mostly local governments, municipalities. We'd love to share information. If you are a member, we invite you, and we encourage you to speak at a on lunch and learn speak about anything you want about anything you want to talk about. There's a lot of common ground.
Karen Titus: and you also have access to our career center. If you're looking for a job. If you'd like to post a job webcast or online watershed library or newsletters, training discounts. And there's much more. Please take a moment to check out our membership page. If you haven't or feel free to just call me directly or email me, and I'd be happy to talk to you if you're interested in finding out more.
Karen Titus: and I'm gonna turn it over to Lisa now.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Great thanks, Karen. I think you already covered a lot of this upfront. But just just a heads up. We have everybody muted. If you do have any questions during the presentations, we encourage you to put it in the chat box, and we have about a half an hour
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: towards the end of the webinar, where we'll circle back to the questions and have time for discussion.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So we like to start off the handful of poll questions just to help us.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: you know, learn more about our our audience that's joining in today. And so our 1st poll question that I just launched how many people are participating
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: in the webcast today from your location? Is it just you? Do you have 2 to 5, 6 to 10? Or do you have a large group of more than 10,
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: you know a few more seconds to fill out that poll.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Great looks like most folks are joining in just by themselves. And then we have a couple of small groups of 2 to 5.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So for our next question.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: who are you representing today? Are you a municipal or local government, state, state, government, federal government, private consultant, nonprofit.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: university researcher, or from Academia private citizen, or if you don't fall into any of those categories. Please let us know in the chat box who you're representing.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Wait a minute. Go ahead and close out. This poll.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Looks like most folks are from
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: state and local governments. We have a few from the Federal Government.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: A pretty large group from private consultants, and then we have a mix of nonprofits and universities.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And then, for our last question, this deals with, how many years of experience do you have with stream restoration? Are you relatively new, and have less than a year.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: one to 3, 3 to 5 years, 5 to 1010 to 20, or, if you've been in this for a long time, have more than 20 years
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and go ahead and close out that poll share the results.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: We have a good good mix of experience. I think it's pretty pretty well mixed across the board there.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Okay, so before we dive into today's webinar, I just wanted to give you a quick recap. This is webinar, 3 in our stream. Restoration webinar series. So if you join us for the 1st couple.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: our 1st webinar, our 1st webinar, was focused on the evolution of stream restoration and a couple of the key takeaways was that
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: unless we address some of the watershed stressors, stream restoration really has marginal benefits.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and that we should be doing. You know, stream restoration should be adaptive, and it should take a more holistic approach.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And we also learned, you know how stream. Restoration is beneficial for protecting downstream resources and helping to prevent erosion, while some of those watershed stressors are addressed.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Then our second webinar that we had last week was focused on a whole watershed approach.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and one of the key takeaways from this webinar was that, despite the call for upland watershed controls, you know, we heard heard a great presentation from Dr. Thompson
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: that the research shows that design based on the current stormwater regulations does not currently protect channel stability.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And that being said, Bmp's do have water quality and quantity benefits and additional research really is needed into the design standards for channel stability.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Another key takeaway. Is that for some of like these smaller watersheds, if you're able to implement watershed controls that treat, you know most of the drainage area. You may be successful at, you know.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: trending towards some sort of channel stability.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: But in some of the larger watersheds that may not be feasible, just due to the number of upland practices you'd have to implement
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and there's also a consideration of just the time aspect. Because if you put in uplink controls. It does take time for the channel to respond. So it's not immediate.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: for this 3rd webinar, we are going to be focusing on assessing alternatives. So tools and best practices.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: excuse me, sorry tools and best practices to Restoration approach selection.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so I'm going to start off today. I'm just giving you a brief overview of some of the best practices from a project we recently completed.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and then we'll have some examples of good and bad stream restoration projects and alternative approaches from Ben Oler, from land studies and drew Altland from strong environmental.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And then we have a series of State agency updates and perspectives.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So we have Brock, Greg, I. From Virginia de Eq. Dave Gorman is joining us from Pennsylvania de Ep. And we have Jeff White from Md.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And then we'll have a presentation on stakeholder education and outreach from Adam neighbors who is with Eqr. As well as the Maryland Stream Restoration Association.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Okay, so I'm gonna kick things off.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: talking about some general best practices for stream restoration. And these came out of a project where we were looking at maintaining forest and stream quarter restoration.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so some of the practices are are focused on maintaining forest. But they're also general and can be applied, you know, not not just for forest, but just in general, for extreme restoration.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So I'll give. Give you a quick overview of the project.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: a summary of the findings and recommendations, and then the next steps.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And we talked a lot about this in the 1st webinar, in terms of, like the drivers of stream Restoration practices.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: In the Chesapeake Bay region there's the Chesapeake Bay tmdl. So this is a pollution diet that requires a reduction of nitrogen phosphorus and sediment so this has been a big driver for stream restoration projects.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and the Chesapeake Bay program has has developed a series of stream restoration crediting protocols that 1st came out
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: in 2014, and they were updated about a few years ago, and these were updated. I mean, these were developed through an expert panel process.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and the credits from these protocols have really contributed as a driver for implementing stream restoration practices.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so there's a concern that you know often the other benefits and considerations of projects beyond just achieving the nutrient sediment loads, reductions are lost.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So, given the concern over the potential negative effects of stream restoration, we received funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to evaluate how some of the unintended consequences can be minimized, focused on the riparian area.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so this is the study was done in both the urban and rural areas of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. But I think that the results are transferable across the country as well.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so a brief overview of what we did for the project. We did a policy and document review. We had interviews with several states, local governments, and practitioners.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And we did a case study analysis of 10 different stream restoration projects.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And we also held a series of state webcasts. And so there's the recording links there. If you're interested in any of those
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and our 2 main deliverables, we had a final report. There's the link here. If you really want to dive into some of the details.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And there's well, there's also a best practices guide, and this was really designed to be a reference guide of some of the best practices. That we identified through this project, and it provides examples and available resources.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So in thinking of what are the potential
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: impacts from stream restoration related to the riparian area.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Excuse me, you can have
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: tree loss directly from removal during construction or compaction or route disturbance.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: but you also get impacts, you know, depending on your design. If you are designing a restoration project that has flood plain inundation, and you leave the trees. Even though you're not physically removing them or disturbing them as part of the Restoration. If they're not tolerant to the the new design conditions, they may be lost as well.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and it can take years, you know, before we
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: really see these spring restorations recover and kind of meet their their full, long-term objectives. There's things like temperature impacts to consider.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And the Chesapeake Bay Program Stream Restoration protocols have qualifying conditions that really tried to, you know, minimize some of these negative impacts. But they're not consistently followed. And so that's why we're seeing some of the some of the impacts that we're we're seeing as part of the restoration projects.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And then last on this list is public criticism.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: You know, we've heard a lot about this lately. Especially in the in the mid Atlantic Area
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: stream. Restorations are construction sites. And so, you know, for homeowners and and folks that are located next to the projects. It can be pretty disturbing if they weren't.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: you know, if they see trees that are being removed, they weren't expecting it, or they didn't really fully understand the whole restoration process.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So I'm gonna walk through some of the key findings and best practices. That we identified from this project through the different stages of stream restoration process. And so the 1st
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: the 1st one is dealing with site selection.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and so generally we found that sites are selected using a combination of either opportunity, opportunistic considerations, watershed assessments, or through mitigation banking efforts.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: But we did find the ultimate decision of where
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: stream restoration projects are being implemented comes down to having available funding as well as a landing, willing landowner.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so one of the most important, best practices we identified was just proper slate selection, using a watershed based approach to help target restoration to areas that are really in need of restoration and to prevent impacts. To some of the existing high quality streams and riparian areas.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: However, one of the needs. Was really having clear definitions of what do we mean by high and low quality streams and riparian areas?
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And you know, we need guidance from the state agencies just to get everybody on the same page. Because I think if you ask 10 different people, what what do you mean by high and low quality. You'll get 10 different answers.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Alright. So our next
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Our next topic, deals with establishing goals and objectives.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so, like, I said before, stream restoration projects, at least in the mid Atlantic region, are commonly implemented with the goal of obtaining nutrient sediment, load reductions related to the Tmdl. And we did a case study analysis. I don't have time to
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: dive into the details, but we were looking at, you know the change in load associated with
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: changing land uses. So going from maybe, like a forested condition to a mixed or tree canopy over turf type of condition
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: in comparison to the credits that you get
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: from doing the Restoration project towards the Tmdl.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And really, what we found is that you know the the load reduction benefits of restoration significantly outweigh any increase in loads from the land, use conversion
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and just helps, you know. Drive home like how the
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: excuse me, how the crediting approach really can be a driver of stream restoration.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so one of the best practices we identified was that
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: stream restoration projects really should be developed through a functional assessment process, such as the stream functions pyramid that we heard about in Webinar, one as opposed to doing them solely for the purpose of Tml. Credits
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: in terms of design and permitting, we found that the removal of entire buffers, or more or mature trees really is a value decision
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: made by municipality or authorizing entity, and it was largely in association with legacy, sediment, removal.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: dam removal, and infrastructure projects. And that is not to say that those projects are bad. It's just to say that
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: you know, each type of Restoration project is different, and each Restoration project has a different goals and objectives. And so it's it's a unique consideration. Depending on on what the purpose of the project is.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: We found that the types of forest agencies and their current level, and of involvement in the design and programming process really varies among the jurisdictions.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And we also found that regulations
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: can contribute to whether trees are removed or not. And so I think Brock's going to talk about this in Virginia. There's the Fema no rise certification. So I'm not going to steal his slender on that
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: but there's also state level regulations, like the Maryland Conservation Act, which is a State regulation, but it gets implemented at the local level, and then the the degree to which the different counties implement it really varies.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So one of the best practices we identified for design and permitting
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: was doing pre-application meetings with the Federal and State, permitting agencies and also coordinating with the forest agents, agencies.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And then another best practice that we identified is trying to incorporate resiliency into stream restoration practices. So, for example.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: including things like assisted migration and planting plans just to incorporate species that are adapting to the changing climate conditions.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and then last in terms of monitoring and maintenance. We found that most restoration projects
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: are being monitored for about 2 to 5 years after construction, and that's really related to the State and Federal permit conditions. And these monitoring requirements are typically focused on stream stability and not necessarily ripe pairing ecosystems.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: However, we are seeing a little bit of a shift, I know, at least in Maryland we're seeing that some functional assessments are being required. So I think that's a promising approach.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Invasive species management is also a big issue. In all of the case studies we reviewed. This, this came up as something that you know, everybody is struggling to keep on top of and that's also compounded by climate change. And so
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: lots of invasive vines and things.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: We also found that funding was frequently a limiting factor for doing any type of extensive post construction monitoring, and that's particularly related to grant funded projects.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: And so one of our key recommendations
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: was to have a pooled monitoring approach, and also to have local governments and funding agencies
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: really give the ability for some of the funds to be allocated for post construction, monitoring and maintenance
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: as well as extending the allowable project period. So monitoring can happen longer term.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So in terms of next steps in the in the final report. If you're interested there in the executive summary, there's a table of all of the different programmatic and research recommendations that we identified.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and we took all those recommendations and developed them into a series of action items
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: and then identified who, you know, would be the lead organization to take on those action items. The timeframe, the priority level and kind of the level of level of effort. And we did this for the Chesapeake Bay program. So they are, you know, going through these different action items, and kind of and developing a strategy and working working through them as they move forward.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: So with that, that was the end of the presentation. And and, like, I said before, we're going to hold questions till the end, because we want to make sure we get through all of the presenters today. But if you do have any questions, feel free to put them in the chat box.
Karen Titus: Thanks, Lisa.
Karen Titus: So our next section is gonna be we're gonna hear about examples of good, bad stream restoration projects and alternative approaches. We're gonna hear from Ben Euler from land studies and drew Auckland from strong environmental. I'd like to introduce now, Ben Euler.
Karen Titus: No, there he is.
Karen Titus: We can't hear you.
Ben Uhler: Sorry he's having technical problems, of course. Yeah, can everybody see my screen? Am I sharing it?
Karen Titus: Yeah, we can see you.
Ben Uhler: Okay. Cool.
Karen Titus: We can see you. If you're sharing a screen, we can't see that we can just see you.
Ben Uhler: Alright! Hold on a second.
Karen Titus: Yeah, you're good. Now.
Ben Uhler: Alright, and you see the presentation view, not the
Ben Uhler: great.
Karen Titus: What's good.
Ben Uhler: Alright cool. Thank you, Karen. Thank you for the center for inviting me to speak today. I'm gonna basically just talk about restoration floodplain restoration from
Ben Uhler: from my perspective.
Ben Uhler: So yeah, let's get at it. These are some views of some unstable conditions that you know is very common that we see all the time. We have. You know, high vertical banks we have lateral erosion channel incision. There's a disconnection between the channel and the flood plain.
Ben Uhler: These are. This is not a natural condition. This is an imperry condition, often the result of anthropogenic influences, especially within the last few 100 years.
Ben Uhler: The national condition was very different in our present day condition most channel systems had very low banks. Hard to tell the difference between stream and wetland. Sometimes anast to most channels were common riparian wetlands were very well connected. Which fostered robust and resilient ecosystems
Ben Uhler: research has indicated. Most of valid bonds were dominantly herbaceous with some scrub shrub
Ben Uhler: not necessarily necessarily forested
Ben Uhler: and perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that most valley bottoms were home to beaver, who were very vital part of any sustainable ecosystem.
Ben Uhler: So what is restoration?
Ben Uhler: let's we'll here's a definition return of an ecosystem to a close approximation of its condition prior to disturbance. Very, very often that term restoration is uses this blanket description for all types of stream improvements. So I just wanted to be clear. There's a very big difference here between restoration and stabilization.
Ben Uhler: So why do it? Why? Why flow plane restoration? Well, flood, plain restoration looks at things very comprehensively. And can return a multitude of desirable functions and values. There's a complex relationship between all these elements. That in a natural condition that we're trying to replicate with the flood. Plain restoration project. Aquatic ecosystems are very complex. And complexity is good thing complexity is resilient.
Ben Uhler: and resilience is sustainable.
Ben Uhler: And this sustainability is quite attractive for a variety of project drivers where a lot is hinging upon the project being successful, like pollutant load reduction projects.
Ben Uhler: compensatory mitigation projects.
Ben Uhler: and even stormwater management. Here's a project where all stormwater associated with with this development is actually managed within the floodplain rather than using conventional stormwater Vnps, such as basins, and in this case that proved to be a very cost, effective approach.
Ben Uhler: one approach. Is legacy, sediment, removal. So I'll talk a little bit about that.
Ben Uhler: This involves in in excavating legacy sediments from the valley, the the sediments that are collected in the valley.
Ben Uhler: basically, since
Ben Uhler: this area was settled
Ben Uhler: and establishing lower flow elevations much closer to the pre settlement condition. Perhaps the most key component of this approach is maximizing that hyperrezone, that that interchange between groundwater surface water as this really sets a stage for achieving that multitude of functions of values that I mentioned earlier.
Ben Uhler: There's a typical bank profile of legacy, sediment situation where you have these thick accumulations of fine green, easy to erode, legacy sediment. Overlying a buried flood, plain layer. That is, you know, very high organic material. Notice the wood buried in there. And usually that's underlain at least the mid Atlantic region. By cobbles and gravels that are more colluen
Ben Uhler: so the stream is cut down through the legacy. Cinnamon through the pre settlement. Plug plant is now sitting on the cluvial gravels below.
Ben Uhler: so cut banks like this can be really helpful displaying that past accumulation, legacy, sediment. But we also do trenches a lot of times where we we execute trenches laterally across the flood plain, usually perpendicular to the valley and that gives basically serves as a window to verify that the conditions are uniform. Across the whole valley bottom. Gives you a lot more reliable
Ben Uhler: information because a lot of times the preset on a layer from the stream bank sometimes can actually be evacuated out of the channel during high flows. So
Ben Uhler: sometimes we do the the observations while the trench is open. Sometimes we extract soil monoliths. You know, for closer examination in the lab later.
Ben Uhler: here's a before and after of a legacy sediment removal project at a golf course in Western Pennsylvania before it was. It was like your typical situation. We executed about 4 feet average of
Ben Uhler: legacy sediment. The list of benefits for this approach is really long. It's, you know, addressing property loss due to erosion, reduce maintenance, localized flood reduction, especially at some place like a golf course, invasive species, removal, educational recreational opportunities in the case of legacy, sediment, removal, generation of fill material can be, you know, utilized to improve upland portions of a particular property, too. So
Ben Uhler: the design approach focuses on maximizing floodplain width to encourage flood flows, to spread out lowering flood, flow depths and thereby minimizing shear stress. Then a base flow channel is designed when appropriate. Sometimes this channel can be single thread, single thread, channel, or or multiple threads sometimes, or sometimes no channel at all.
Ben Uhler: So. But if the system is impacted by legacy sentiment, I think it's important that to that the removal this material should be considered as a viable, and, you know, preferred restoration, option, if if not hindered by other site constraints.
Ben Uhler: So now I'm going to talk about some misconceptions about floodplain restoration. Here's 1st one. All floodplain restoration projects involve legacy set and removal.
Ben Uhler: No, that's not the case. I mean
Ben Uhler: a lot of times. It does. Doesn't mean it's always the case. There's a lot of times where there's some valleys that aren't legacy sediment. This stream has simply just downcut through it, matching whatever it's flowing into, and kind of unzipping back to. You know whether it's a change in storm water or an outfall, or something like that. But it's essentially abandoned. It's
Ben Uhler: previous floodplains. So the approach here would be to fill the channel and to match that abandoned floodplain elevation.
Ben Uhler: Here's it before and after of a recently completed non legacy sediment project in Ann Arbor County, Maryland, where, intermittent gully was basically filled to match the abandoned flood plain. Here the disturbances to the existing canopy was minimized as much as we could.
Ben Uhler: but we're able to still have enough width to be sustainable for a hundred year flow event.
Ben Uhler: No channel was constructed at all for this one notice the use of woody debris across the flood plain for roughness and habitat native woody plants we're planning across full width of the flood plain for this one.
Ben Uhler: But I think it's very important to note when using this approach, it's absolutely critical to make the downstream tie in stable by sloping the valley entire valley. Gradually rather than trying to force it all into the existing channel at the bottom, and relying on armoring in, you know, one particular spot. That might mean having a cut at the bottom to make that that work.
Ben Uhler: Another misconception. Forested flow. Plains are more stable plains with primary, primarily herbaceous vegetation.
Ben Uhler: Yeah, I think sometimes it's often these some of these instabilities are often like the skies are simply hard to see and heavily vegetated or wooded areas, but it's very much there. We have extreme bank erosion and slope failure in farces. Extreme values is very common.
Ben Uhler: And just kind of indicating that the tree roots in this situation are clearly not protecting the stream banks.
Ben Uhler: I think it's knowing how and when to preserve trees without compromising the stability of the project is very important. Here's a grove of sycamores they're they're they're rooted at a at a lower elevation. This is a perfect example. Where? When? To keep trees? And and
Ben Uhler: you know and I think it's very important. Also, when it terms of repairing Bruff or plannings we need to think about
Ben Uhler: when they are and are not appropriate.
Ben Uhler: I think these kids know the the answer to that, because I always talk about that.
Ben Uhler: another one flood, plain restoration projects cause warming of surface waters because the existing canopy is eliminated.
Ben Uhler: 1st of all, eliminating the surrounding the surrounding canopy is definitely not an objective of like of a flowplane restoration project.
Ben Uhler: but I think it's clear. Sometimes tree removal is necessary to to create a sustainable situation, and I think the way we have to look at sometimes you need to give give a little to get something out of it, get something better.
Ben Uhler: These projects really aimed to create a reliable connection with the hydrology. Specifically, that groundwater surface water interfacing the hyper zone, which really is what drives to keep what the the driver for keeping water temperatures uniformly cool, regardless of shade
Ben Uhler: and these cool temperatures, which are obviously good for a habitat, are are able to remain consistent in this condition, even when you have extreme temper. Swings and weather conditions like temperature, drought and stuff like that. And then, once it's the herbaceous and scrub shrub vegetation is mature. I think it provides a lot more shade over overhead cover than a lot of people realize, too.
Ben Uhler: floodplain restoration is applicable to all sites and situations. You know, we hear this all the time we're forcing floodplain restoration in where it doesn't belong. Of course we're not trying to do that. I mean, if if you have the space available, and you know everything's right for it, sure. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. There's limited spaces, encroachments.
Ben Uhler: whatever the case, you know you have your typical hard armoring, rip wrap situations. You have your imbricated rock walls and toe protection along infrastructure stuff like that. Not saying that any of these strategies are not, you know, necessarily wrong. It's just that they should be on. It should be understood that they're temporary fixes rather than actual solution, and they will, and they don't return the level of function that was lost from the natural condition. Of course.
Ben Uhler: A lot of times when we're limited on space. You know we try to go for an approach where we create benches or do bank raiding with vegetation. For a more, you know, natural looking approach than than hard armoring.
Ben Uhler: But whatever the case.
Ben Uhler: whatever the approach is, I think, the design
Ben Uhler: focus should be about reducing shear stresses and velocities. 2d. Modeling is very powerful tool for doing this. It involves multiple iterations proposed grading and modeling, identifying potential vulnerabilities associated with like tie ins or where a road over tops or pinch points in the valley where high shear stress is anticipated and and then it's used to evaluate ways to protect potentially vulnerable areas.
Ben Uhler: So keys to successful design, I just wanna go through a few things that I come to mind, you know, get the historical context figured out before you get started on anything, you know. Understand?
Ben Uhler: how where your project is, what what the watershed is, how it's been affected over time.
Ben Uhler: really dial in little constraints, of course. Whether they're natural or or manmade. Subsurface assessments important. What I was talking about earlier doing trenches. Geo props, tile probes whatever to get a good idea. What's happening below the surface using tools like 2D modeling which I talked about is is very helpful. A big thing is design the floodplain. First, st you know, we design these things for the 100 year, storm or more.
Ben Uhler: Get that figured out 1st and then focus on on the channel afterwards. Always pay close attention to the tie-ins upstream and downstream. Propose reliable great control, especially because you know that 1st 5 or so years after construction, when the vegetation isn't established yet, and it's very important to have that great control in place.
Ben Uhler: you know. Push boundaries, you know. Think outside the box, you know. Don't be afraid to do those things, but always respect the science, and really always continue to evolve, learn, and, you know, be willing to fine tune your approach to achieve success.
Ben Uhler: That's really all I got.
Karen Titus: Thank you so much, Ben. That was great.
Karen Titus: I'd like to introduce now, Drew Auckland. I'm strong.
Karen Titus: It didn't look like you were muted. But we can't hear you, Drew. If you are.
Karen Titus: we still can't hear ya.
Drew Altland: How about now, Karen? Can you hear me now?
Karen Titus: Not yet. We can hear you now. Thanks.
Drew Altland: And the
Drew Altland: can you see my proper screen here.
Karen Titus: Looks, good.
Drew Altland: So let me
Drew Altland: well, thank you so much. I apologize for delays there, even with our. So we still find ways to
Drew Altland: make things complicated. But as Karen said, I'm drew Altin, I'm a director of Eco Restoration and full delivery solutions with strong environmental, and I really appreciate the opportunity to to be here today. I wanted to start by giving some recognition where I think it's due. You know, I've had a very fortunate over my career to work for some clients who are very forward thinking and innovative
Drew Altland: and routinely combined research with stream restoration projects, you know, which has been really rewarding and a huge learning opportunity for me, and really started back in the nineties with Bill Stack when he's at the city of Baltimore, managing their Ms. 4 program
Drew Altland: and some folks at the Maryland State Highway Administration, Dana Havlick, Brian Cole, their predecessors, and the recently retired. Andy Kasicki, who's back part time, who spearheaded decade decades of collaboration, research and innovation.
Drew Altland: and also with the folks at Pennsylvania. Dep Dave Gorman is going to be talking a little bit later, and Jeff Hart Ramp
Drew Altland: and Eric Michael Cindy in Rural County. These leaders have really supported research, you know, with academic institutions to to basically father, what we know today and and what I'm presenting. So I just wanted to give a shout out to to those folks.
Drew Altland: but you know, similar to
Drew Altland: defense presentation. I think you know.
Drew Altland: when we talk about restoration, you know, we kind of had to 1st define it. What does Restoration mean? And and Ben had showed a a definition that resonates with him. You know I have a couple that resonate with me, you know, one from the Society of Ecological Ecological Restoration.
Drew Altland: the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem
Drew Altland: that has been degraded, damage or destroyed, and one that I come back to more often than not one from the EPA in 2,000 which is similar to the one that then presented is the return of a degraded ecosystem to a close approximation of its natural potential.
Drew Altland: I mean, I think, that that definition kind of says it all. You know, we want to return this system to its its remaining national potential in today's environment. So that's kind of how I think about restoration as as I approach projects and try to figure out. You know what the impacts were, and which ones can we undo?
Drew Altland: Not to get too far in the weeds with this? Because Dorothy merits at Webinar number one did a fantastic job of of outlaying the long history of stream impacts. Ben just went through that as well. I think the focus of my presentations maybe take a little higher level view and think about
Drew Altland: you know how these impacts translate to what we see on the ground today? So when we're assessing the historic impacts, you know, we should be asking ourselves questions like, you know, where is the stream channel located today? And where do we think it was? Historically?
Drew Altland: What is the evidence of? Is there evidence of past damning? You know how much modern sediment or legacy. Sediment has filled the flood plain. And can we see the pre colonial indicators of the hydric soil and the and the groundwater aquifer gravel materials, and if we don't see them on the sites, you know, why are we not seeing them? What's happened?
Drew Altland: so you know, not only assessing the historical connotations, but also thinking about the modern infrastructure. And what constraints do we have with our sites today because of the development that has occurred around us.
Drew Altland: and I like to think of the modern development as really an insult to injury. You know these streams have been impacted for centuries and then, now, you know, in the 19 hundreds and beyond. Now we're paving over the watersheds. We're putting utilities along the flood plains. We're building roads that you know, routinely cross and and PIN the streams in certain locations. So it's really, you know, an insult to injury from centuries of impact.
Drew Altland: So
Drew Altland: we think of the the modern constraints. I tend to think of them in 2 ways is what's the infrastructure, you know that is, is in these flood plains from the utilities and the roads. But also, what's the modern natural resources that are there today, such as the trees and the wetlands and the water courses that are there today, and how are they existing today? Versus how they, how they occupy these flow planes historically.
Drew Altland: and which constraints can be modified within these projects, and which ones are beyond the realm of the projects funding, you know. Can we remove the concrete channel? Can we relocate the sanitary sewer line on the stream bank. Can we remove the modern forest to basically lower the flood plain and remove the legacy sediment from these flood plains in the name of restoration, and restoring the remaining natural potential of these systems.
Drew Altland: So again, a lot has been talked about with these historical
Drew Altland: indicators that we see on streams. But we 1st have to really figure out how these streams functioned
Drew Altland: before the colonial period. You know, how? How was the stream?
Drew Altland: In a wetland complex interacting? What elevations did they exist at? And you know, the one thing that strikes me is when you look at this historic hydric soil that evolved since last Ice age to about year 1,600,
Drew Altland: and you pull a a chunk out of it and you look at it. That's been preserved under anaerobic conditions, you know, under the groundwater and the seed Matt, and the and the vegetation, and the and the stems are all kind of entwined in this in this hydrate soil. What you don't see is the the underlaying gravel layer, you know, intermixed and dispersed throughout it.
Drew Altland: So what we really had for thousands of years was a slowly accreting wetland soil that formed over thousands of years of the warming period since last ice age.
Drew Altland: And you didn't see these systems delivering a high dead load system that was reworking the flood plains. That was typically thought of these systems being alluvial. That was so, you know, a supply of dead load from the watershed that was reworking these flood plains.
Drew Altland: When we find these historic indicators, we're just not seeing those conditions existed for thousands of years in the areas that I study, you know, along the Eastern United States.
Drew Altland: So you know, what? What have we learned about what these pre-colonial pre settlement forms. Pre, 1,600. You know. What did they look like?
Drew Altland: Well, we're we know that the groundwater inputs.
Drew Altland: the base flow and the flood flows. We're all operating on the same plane. These systems were highly connected, and all all operating on the on a very similar vertical plane.
Drew Altland: Most every runoff event that would have been produced by the watershed would have inundated the majority of the floodplains which which often had expanse of wetland systems associated associated with with the flood plains.
Drew Altland: The floodplain root zones were directly tied into the groundwater aquifer.
Drew Altland: and these systems were very retentive in nature, so that any sediment being supplied by the watershed, or nutrients, or organic carbon sources would have been retained in these flow plains and part of the wetland accretion that would have happened slowly over thousands of years.
Drew Altland: and these systems were very low energy, and so the the Epiphanal substrate was very stable, which was.
Drew Altland: which was very positive, for the the insects that flourished there, and the fish who fed on the insects.
Drew Altland: So in the water, temperatures were largely regulated by the connection to the groundwater aquifer. So surface waters were constantly being cold by springs that popped out of the hillsides and from up under, you know, upwelling from underneath the aquifer. So that was the controlling mechanism for for water temperature.
Drew Altland: So
Drew Altland: this is something that I typically present as a number of slides. But the time constraints I wanted to combine all this, you know, into into one slide to kind of show, some common impacted forms
Drew Altland: from the stream being purged, you know, with on top of legacy sediment when vertical controls in place, as those
Drew Altland: say, vertic control, such as you know, remaining dams or culverts or utility crossings with, you know, like a sewer line with an encasement. They'll keep these systems purchased on the modern sediment or legacy sediment, and as those controls start to degrade.
Drew Altland: these streams will degrade as well, and then, you know, you will have a a system that has a lot of flood, plain wetlands as personal legacy, sediment, and as those streams and size, those flood plains will dry out and become less wet
Drew Altland: until eventually, when the controls are removed or don't exist, the stream will insize all the way down to expose those historic features like Ben showed in his slide slide show before mine, and the last common form here we have is the one where the streams been pushed into the valley wall.
Drew Altland: This is often a a relic of the mill damning era. When we had the mill races on, on that went down the valley margins, and these streams are often pinned there in place now, because of the bridges and culverts and the roadway crossings that kind of keep the stream stream streams pinned on the valley walls, and a lot of instances.
Drew Altland: It's also important to note that you can have these common, impacted forms, multiple of them within a project reach. You know, you can see where the train, the stream will transition from one to the next
Drew Altland: within thousands of feet. So it's it's not uncommon to have.
Drew Altland: you know, many of these approaches showing up in the watershed
Drew Altland: and then breaking down, the basic intervention approaches or restoration approaches into the most basic form. I'm showing 3 of them here. You know, there's multiple variations of these approaches. But this is kind of the basics you know, with time constraints. So.
Drew Altland: you know, approach. One is kind of lowering the flood plain and removing as much of the legacy sediment that's in the system to the extent feasible, you know. As Ben pointed out, these systems will have transition folks at the upstream end. They'll need to be protected. As you remove the flood plain and you lower it, you will have some transition at the top.
Drew Altland: The middle approach is is basically stabilizing the the modern sediment in place. This could be with natural channel design, or just kind of channel armoring, you know, with larger storm events to kind of keep it in place. And the bottom approach is basically reraising the stream that up to tie into the modern into the the modern flood plain surface, you know, filled with legacy, sediment
Drew Altland: and these these this approach approach, 3 will usually have transitions at the bottom to get back down that need to be protected. And
Drew Altland: you know, the other thing I wanted to point out with approach, one is by removing that modern sediment. You're basically adding floodplain storage and often lowering water surface elevations where with approach 3. Sometimes you're you're decreasing flood plain storage, because now you're filling in a size channel which could lead to increased water surface elevations, you know, with your modeling before and after conditions.
Drew Altland: So all that background was basically to get to a few slides here to basically compare and contrast some restoration approaches. And and my intent here is not to talk about what's a good restoration versus a bad restoration, but really thinking about what's restoration versus stabilization
Drew Altland: and
Drew Altland: so I've got some some comparisons here the first.st The 1st slide here is comparing, comparing approach, one
Drew Altland: where we're lowering the flood plain to basically restore a screen wetland complex that's tied into the groundwater aquifer and the historic hydric soil that was available at this site versus an approach to which has a slightly larger channel, using maybe not slightly, but a larger channel using a natural channel designed approach. That would be, convey a 1 to 2 year storm.
Drew Altland: and both photos were taken soon after construction, so that there's a, you know a a fair comparison of the channels, the floodplain, the structures where you can see the wet flood plain. You know, on the photo on the left versus the drier flow plane on the photo on the right, and you can see that the the channel is protected with the natural channel designed approach. I'm not gonna read the bolts here for time. Time. Ish, you know, constraints here. But you can see some some of the differences with these 2
Drew Altland: the next comparison is comparison of an approach 3. Where we're raising the stream bed to basically tie into the the legacy. Sediment filled flowplane versus an approach to which is more of stabilization in place. And both of these photos again, we're taking soon after construction. You know, with the with the approach. 3. Again, we're raising the stream bed this system would, typically, you know, be a gain of retention system. It's
Drew Altland: often looking to elevate ground groundwater locally to basically create wetlands by elevating groundwater water water rather than tying into the aquifer
Drew Altland: where approach 2 is more of combating the high channel stresses and trying to hold things in place, and often relies on rock structures to to preserve the legacy sediment and keep it in place.
Drew Altland: And the last slide I have
Drew Altland: to compare is looking at higher gradient systems. And I think this is one thing that gets lost often is that you can also have a stream, wet way and complex in a steeper valor. Steeper valley setting. These 2 projects are comparing, you know, designs at approximately a 6% slope.
Drew Altland: So you know, approach one that's creating a base flow size channel with a steep vegetated flood plain. It's creating a wetland flood plain system and a 6% slope where the approach, 3 approaches, creating a step pole channel, raising the stream bed up and creating a rocky, steep channel where you're essentially protecting the the system. With rock steps.
Drew Altland: So again, just thinking about different restoration approaches, and what might be restoration versus stabilization, and kind of getting back to the basics of how these streams evolved and functions, and what things that we can. We can restore in these systems to to have a a true, true restoration footprint.
Karen Titus: Thank you so much. True, I appreciate it. We're gonna move on quickly now to then our next speaker next section is stakeholder, education and outreach. And I'd like to introduce
Karen Titus: Adam Neighbors nap members. Adam is with Eqr. And the President of the Maryland Stream Restoration Association.
Karen Titus: Thanks for being here.
Adam Nabors: Hey? Thanks, Karen.
Adam Nabors: Second, to get set up.
Adam Nabors: Okay. Great
Adam Nabors: thanks.
Adam Nabors: Adam. Neighbors.
Adam Nabors: I am the president of the Maryland Stream Restoration Association.
Adam Nabors: and I'm here to talk briefly today about the efforts of our organization to do what we're calling to bridge the knowledge gap and our our public outreach initiative.
Adam Nabors: this is a condensed version of a presentation that we gave at the National Conference last year. So I want to quickly recognize the contributors here, Liz Canner, Katrina, Emery Davis, and Rebecca Oakes. We're all very helpful in this entire effort, and the presentation, too.
Adam Nabors: if you're not from Maryland or the mid Atlantic region. You may not have heard of the Msra
Adam Nabors: the Msra was established in 2,003.
Adam Nabors: Me move something here.
Adam Nabors: Yeah. Currently, we're 370 members approximately made up of Regulators. State Federal agency reps.
Adam Nabors: municipalities, ecologists align nonprofits, engineers, academics, contractors.
Adam Nabors: material suppliers. I
Adam Nabors: a little
Adam Nabors: note about myself. I'm not a Marylander. I moved to Maryland by way of Montana. On arrival in Maryland I was immediately drawn to the Maryland Stream restoration for the community, the collaborative community that they created amongst this diverse membership
Adam Nabors: everyone working together to help to expand the science
Adam Nabors: upstream restoration what worked, what doesn't where we've had successes and share our failures as well. So it's
Adam Nabors: That's a little bit about us.
Adam Nabors: So for our public outreach effort.
Adam Nabors: we began to recognize the need. Let's say, in 2,001, when we started to see
Adam Nabors: news articles articles in the local media regarding stream restoration and questions about
Adam Nabors: the practice of stream restoration. And whether or not it was
Adam Nabors: whether or not it was Bible
Adam Nabors: we had a few of our members. Municipality representatives reach out to us
Adam Nabors: and ask us to
Adam Nabors: if we had, if we could assist
Adam Nabors: in communicating with their constituents
Adam Nabors: regarding regarding stream restoration as a practice.
Adam Nabors: And so we dug into that and
Adam Nabors: What we quickly identified was an information gap that existed. As you can see here, these are some some quotes from specific articles. There's some reasonable concerns in here.
Adam Nabors: and some dedicated misinformation as well. The Msra's goal.
Adam Nabors: and and you know, after attending many
Adam Nabors: community meetings, mostly virtual, some some in person, but a lot of virtual meetings. We recognize that there was a small but very vocal
Adam Nabors: Group that was against stream restoration. But sifting through the Comment section, we quickly found
Adam Nabors: a large
Adam Nabors: contingent
Adam Nabors: of
Adam Nabors: of folks that were interested in learning more about information about stream restoration, but wanted information for them to make the determination on it themselves.
Adam Nabors: And so we focused on that group.
Adam Nabors: our goal, you know, is to educate that group
Adam Nabors: and reach them in a way that's meaningful.
Adam Nabors: And so we set forward with that effort. So
Adam Nabors: how do you do that?
Adam Nabors: Well, the 1st thing we did we were lucky that we have such a diverse membership. We were able to pull together A very robust technical committee. These are some of the contributors that we had. There were others that I'm sure that we have missed
Adam Nabors: I, and we started to discuss what the best way to reach this group to a address, this desire for information, what the best effort would be towards towards that.
Adam Nabors: if you're having a similar conversation in the communities where you live. Let me go ahead and tell you about a couple of the challenges, and maybe you can learn from us
Adam Nabors: as you have seen over the last couple weeks in these presentations, and as the Msra knows well as we have a very diverse membership, there are, there is not a consensus
Adam Nabors: on the methodologies of stream restoration. There are different applications for different project sites. As Lisa mentioned this morning or earlier, there are value assessments that are made and and value based decisions that are made regarding stream restorations. And to attempt to make the conversation easier is challenging. We're talking about complex systems
Adam Nabors: reaching a consensus consensus in this group was, was
Adam Nabors: an interesting exercise, and one that I found incredibly valuable and helps us helped us to better understand a right way to the correct way. To reach a larger group
Adam Nabors: scheduling is, of course, hard everybody that works at the Msr. Including myself, is is a volunteer. So we all have day jobs and trying to put together an effort such as this, though we all see as meaningful. Was a challenging
Adam Nabors: with a challenging effort.
Adam Nabors: We hired a consultant to work with this. It was the largest financial effort
Adam Nabors: that the Msra has engaged to date
Adam Nabors: and we identified a consultant. We worked very closely with them again. As a volunteer working with a with a 4 hire consultant. The the timeframes for deliverables tend to miss a little bit there. But they were really great. And we're really happy with the with the process and the product.
Adam Nabors: one more lesson learned. This is a this is a recommendation from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government, and this is
Adam Nabors: a recommendation that we took to heart. Our goal was not to create content that was not
Adam Nabors: approachable or digestible
Adam Nabors: by the large audience that we were looking to reach.
Adam Nabors: And so to do that, we need to be shooting in a 7 to 8th grade level.
Adam Nabors: When we communicate
Adam Nabors: again challenging to do when we're talking about complex scientific processes here.
Adam Nabors: So just challenges.
Adam Nabors: let's go into what we actually ended up creating. So we created 2, what we refer to as as Tab one and Tab 2. But we created 2 different slide decks
Adam Nabors: and
Adam Nabors: conversations that we've been having through the course of these webinars over the last couple of weeks. But one of them, layered into most of these presentations has been gaining an understanding of healthy stream systems. And so we created a slide deck
Adam Nabors: that we will. That helps the audience to understand the characteristics of a healthy stream system. And our rationale was this, once
Adam Nabors: the understood? Once the characteristics of a healthy stream system are understood.
Adam Nabors: it's not difficult to recognize the absence
Adam Nabors: of those characteristics.
Adam Nabors: and once the absence of those characteristics is realized,
Adam Nabors: the conversation of stream restoration becomes
Adam Nabors: more apparent.
Adam Nabors: So we created a slide deck that goes through and helps the audience understand what those characteristics are. Characteristics and functions of a healthy stream system are. The importance and value of flood. Plain defining a watershed.
Adam Nabors: What is a watershed, and how does a watershed affect the health of a stream system? The value of flood plains and riparian corridors and valleys the repairing and vegetative community, and and how it functions, and the benefit that it provides.
Adam Nabors: We went further than this, and then
Adam Nabors: to Drew and Ben and Lisa. We're also talking about this as well as Dorothy and Tess earlier, and others.
Adam Nabors: we wanted our audience to better understand the legacy of Maryland streams, how we have altered our landscapes for the last 400 years.
Adam Nabors: and how we, how we got from where we think we they were
Adam Nabors: into where we are now.
Adam Nabors: how we continue to alter those landscapes and the impact
Adam Nabors: that they the impact that they impart on our ecosystems.
Adam Nabors: So these are 2
Adam Nabors: different. 2 different slide decks.
Adam Nabors: That the Msra is moving is taking on the road.
Adam Nabors: So that was phase one, to create these 2, these 2 educational tools. Phase 2
Adam Nabors: is expanding on phase one, we need more money.
Adam Nabors: And so we're seeking grants. But for additional work.
Adam Nabors: We are gonna distribute and present phase one. So we're gonna host it on our website. We we are going to provide it
Adam Nabors: free of charge to anyone that is interested, and that would like to use it for their discussions at their level, whatever that may be.
Adam Nabors: We're also not only going to present this virtually, we're gonna present it in person myself, and will weaver the present elect coming in next year. We're in Gaithersburg with an environmental organization just this past Saturday afternoon, talking about the talking about stream restoration and the nuance of stream restoration. So we plan to do much more of that.
Adam Nabors: further, we're going to create additional content.
Adam Nabors: explaining natural processes of stream systems.
Adam Nabors: for even going beyond that, we plan to take the Msra website and
Adam Nabors: turn it into a resource library
Adam Nabors: for members and guests as a place to find information on screen restoration. We currently host webinars frequently, which we post on our website, we have research on our website. But we wanna build that. So we can be
Adam Nabors: a location for concerned individuals to find information on stream restoration. So we want to become that resource for them. One thing that we realize we need to do, we need to hire a communications consultant.
Adam Nabors: I'm a contractor by trade. You saw the I mentioned before, the the range of our membership. You noticed that I didn't mention communications consultant.
Adam Nabors: None of us have that in our toolbox, and realizing that we might need some assistance there. So we're gonna we're gonna bring one in. It's it's not easy to reach large audiences. And be meaningful with the message that you deliver. We host field trips for memberships. We're gonna be hosting field trips for memberships, for members as well as members of the community. And we are
Adam Nabors: actively advocating for any interested members of the community to join the Msra engage in the discussion. There will be very technical presentations. Ask questions of our community. Ask questions of our members.
Adam Nabors: We'd love to
Adam Nabors: help all gain a better understanding
Adam Nabors: of this practice.
Adam Nabors: So this is.
Adam Nabors: you know what? How the Msra.
Adam Nabors: As
Adam Nabors: has has gone towards
Adam Nabors: our public outreach initiative. I'll look forward to any and all questions at the end. Here. I wanna thank the the Center for for having us here. This is has been a very pressing issue in the mid Atlantic region for many years. And
Adam Nabors: it's something that I think that we all need to improve at
Adam Nabors: is is helping to helping members of the public concerned, members of the public understand what we do and what we all know to be beneficial.
Adam Nabors: So thank you.
Karen Titus: Thank you. Thank you so much, Adam. That was great.
Karen Titus: I'd like to move on to the next section, which is State agency perspectives, and we have 3 different speakers. We'll have Dave Gorman from the Pennsylvania Department
Karen Titus: of EPA. Jeff. White, from Mde. And Brock, that Reggie from Virginia de queue, and I'd like to introduce now, Dave, foreman.
Dave Goerman: Hi, can you hear me? Okay.
Karen Titus: Sound, great.
Dave Goerman: Alright! Let's see
Dave Goerman: apologize cause I missed the
Dave Goerman: practice session.
Karen Titus: It's okay.
Dave Goerman: Is, get my!
Dave Goerman: I don't know. Why
Dave Goerman: is that? Are you able to see my presentation?
Karen Titus: No.
Dave Goerman: No right, it's not showing up
Dave Goerman: alright. Try this again.
Dave Goerman: There we go, wrong window.
Karen Titus: Okay, there you go. You can put it in presentation mode, and then you'll be all set. Yup. Perfect.
Dave Goerman: Alright! How's that? Oops go back? One?
Dave Goerman: I I'd like to to thank the Center for watershed protection for for having me speak today.
Dave Goerman: Dave Gorman.
Dave Goerman: water program specialist in the Pennsylvania Dep.
Dave Goerman: I've been working on restoration issues for better part of a decade or 2 2 decades. Now actually
Dave Goerman: and I'd like to echo. You know some of what has already been said in that.
Dave Goerman: Our efforts in Pennsylvania have been a very large collaborative effort among
Dave Goerman: many different groups and and entities. Both, you know. Regulatory program.
Dave Goerman: Researchers, academic researchers, private researchers
Dave Goerman: as well as practitioners and working very closely and collaboratively to to
Dave Goerman: advance the state of sign of of this Restoration science in Pennsylvania, and understanding of how
Dave Goerman: our systems got to where they are is a big part of that. So
Dave Goerman: what I'm gonna talk about today is kind of where our our waterways and wetlands permitting program
Dave Goerman: has been moving for the past decade. And we're trying to formally
Dave Goerman: kind of solidify this as as a as a practice when
Dave Goerman: seeking restoration or waiver of permit requirements for restoration activity
Dave Goerman: activities. Excuse me.
Dave Goerman: one of the foundations of of our process has been.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Hey, Dave, I sorry I hate to interrupt you. We're so we're seeing the the power overall Powerpoint, but not the actual presentation like it doesn't look like you started the presentation, and it's not. We don't see the slides moving.
Dave Goerman: Weird
Dave Goerman: like it is on my screen. Sorry?
Dave Goerman: Why is it
Dave Goerman: about now?
Dave Goerman: Nope.
Dave Goerman: now, I do think you just.
Karen Titus: Let's go to. If you go to slideshow
Karen Titus: on the top. If you click on that.
Dave Goerman: Yeah, that's what I'm
Dave Goerman: that's what I did, but it's when it pops out to the slideshow.
Dave Goerman: It must stop.
Dave Goerman: Oh.
Dave Goerman: it has something to do. Sorry
Dave Goerman: I just got a new laptop on top of everything. So it's not.
Dave Goerman: it's it's also
Dave Goerman: alright. Does that work.
Karen Titus: No, it's still in the same
Karen Titus: not in presenter mode. We can see your 1st slide, but it's not.
Dave Goerman: Yeah.
Karen Titus: I mean it's fine if you if that's the way it is, I mean, let me see.
Dave Goerman: Yeah, it doesn't. I don't want to waste any more time, because it doesn't seem to want to work.
Dave Goerman: Alright. Yeah, I apologize for that I'll just manually click through.
Dave Goerman: So so we we've used the the EPA's 2,000 principles of ecological restoration of aquatic resources
Dave Goerman: as a basis for our program development and efforts.
Dave Goerman: The approach provides a really sound framework in in terms of program development and site development or or evaluating sites.
Dave Goerman: And and so it it allows you to to kind of set your program
Dave Goerman: high level objectives aside and actually evaluate what is best for the site by following these principles.
Dave Goerman: And essentially.
Dave Goerman: you know, there's 17 of them.
Dave Goerman: We've boiled on Dante about, you know, 4 major categories.
Dave Goerman: So I'm going to cover these core elements of of identifying alterations.
Dave Goerman: natural, identifying, or or or discovering the natural, unaltered environment.
Dave Goerman: the modern constraints, and then design and modeling.
Dave Goerman: The the one thing I can say is, is
Dave Goerman: following these principles in developing our our efforts has allowed us to kind of change how the regulatory program approaches evaluating projects in relation to restoration.
Dave Goerman: and and you hear a lot of
Dave Goerman: comments. I see comments in the in the
Dave Goerman: chat box, and I see this at every every Webinar group. We're at
Dave Goerman: there's always this. Well, what is restoration? What is that? What is this?
Dave Goerman: And and I think the the reason we're the what we do is a little bit different is, and maybe a little more successful. For for a regulatory program
Dave Goerman: is is we're what we're doing is evaluating how the system was altered.
Dave Goerman: and that those alterations form the basis for the decision making, in other words, that that forms the basis for identifying your alternatives. Analysis, because if you're able to
Dave Goerman: to address the alterations that were done, then that is truly restoration. You're restoring a former environment or degraded environment back to its potential
Dave Goerman: and and
Dave Goerman: by doing that that allows you to a lot of other trade or benefits analysis as well.
Dave Goerman: But it really
Dave Goerman: it's it's a different approach than the traditional alternatives. Analysis which always starts out with do no harm. This approach us, starts out with what is wrong with the system. Are you actually addressing what is wrong. And if not, then then we start talking about other things like stabilization, protection
Dave Goerman: and so forth. So so you can see, like those 4 core elements. This is an attempt to
Dave Goerman: to color code and see how there's a lot of overlap between the different elements and the 17 principles.
Dave Goerman: Obviously there's preserve and protect when you don't need to. There's no alterations.
Dave Goerman: You don't need to do anything that's the best option.
Dave Goerman: passive restoration. I this is still on a very big open question as to whether
Dave Goerman: that works we are investigating it. We do do demonstration projects and our funding research
Dave Goerman: to follow those projects, but the the, the
Dave Goerman: the results are still mixed at best.
Dave Goerman: and so one of the biggest things is is identifying, constraining alterations. So when I say constraining, that means it constrains the resource from recovery.
Dave Goerman: These past alterations like legacy sediments from mill dams, or they could be head cuts from base level lowering.
Dave Goerman: they, they put boundary conditions on the resource in the aquatic resource or portions of the watershed
Dave Goerman: that prevent it from recovering back to its optimum or natural potential.
Dave Goerman: And and it's and what it existed to in its unaltered form.
Dave Goerman: And and essentially these, these alterations will will arrest any kind of restoration on a timescale that interests people.
Dave Goerman: Otherwise, you're talking about millennia
Dave Goerman: thousands of years to to to undo those damages and reset the entire valley. Basically
Dave Goerman: so so to identify the alterations, we're really talking about historic and modern changes. But but this goes beyond looking at traditional water quality impairments and water chemistry. This is more about physical and geomorphic alterations. So you really have to understand how the valley and when we talk about streams, everybody's typically focuses on stream channel.
Dave Goerman: What we're talking about is actually the flood plain, the than that the flood plain valley. So we're evaluating the historic alterations that change
Dave Goerman: the base level controls from its unaltered condition, and we'll talk about unaltered condition here in a second.
Dave Goerman: So this is more than just floodplain connection. In other words, flooding of the flood plain. This is also looking at a lot of other hydrologic connections below ground or in joining hill slopes. If it's in headwater systems.
Dave Goerman: So again, this isn't necessarily focusing on where the channel is today or what constitutes the channel today, this is a little bit of a broader approach
Dave Goerman: and this allows people to
Dave Goerman: it, or it. It's a way of preventing people from from confusing symptoms.
Dave Goerman: Versus the underlying alterations. A lot of projects look to treat symptoms which is a short term fix and a short term issue related to water quality. What we're looking at is broader, underlying alterations that are that these symptoms are exhibiting
Dave Goerman: in these systems.
Dave Goerman: So it's really important to to understand the unalter natural environment when you're talking about a project development in any kind of
Dave Goerman: watershed context. I mean.
Dave Goerman: I I see a lot of there was a comment in the chat earlier. And I see this every time. Is people mistake this for trying to restore a prehistoric
Dave Goerman: ecological condition. And that's not what this is. This is about investigating what existed in this valley for thousands of years, unaltered, unaffected by climatic variation
Dave Goerman: it, it was able to adapt and address and handle changes in the natural environment
Dave Goerman: over a very long span of time, some cases thousands, some cases 10,000 years. So we know these systems are stable, and they're long lived in the current in the conditions they were in.
Dave Goerman: So this involves both.
Dave Goerman: You, you also to to understand the natural environment.
Dave Goerman: You can do historical text investigations like, you know, earlier explore journals a lot of times. There's information in those books that talk about the conditions they encountered as they explored an area valley. But again, this is a flood plain basis, not channel centric. We're talking about the valley.
Dave Goerman: Geotechnical investigations are critical
Dave Goerman: to understanding the unaltered environment.
Dave Goerman: They can involve trenches and pits like Ben talked about earlier. There's other methods out there.
Dave Goerman: But they are really important to understand the full extent of the valley and the changes that have occurred to it.
Dave Goerman: We also use carbon dating and magnetic susceptibility.
Dave Goerman: measurements that show to try to age
Dave Goerman: and constrain different aid.
Dave Goerman: diff to constrain the age of the the historic wetland soils, because sometimes you will have more than one, and it's not clear which one is the the proper target.
Dave Goerman: That does occur in in a in a not too many sites, but it does occur.
Dave Goerman: But again, this is this is trying to build multiple lines of evidence
Dave Goerman: to build on and make a decision about what's what's can be done at a site and what should be done at a site
Dave Goerman: as as a project developed.
Dave Goerman: So a big part of this, somebody commented to me one day at at a, at another large meeting. We were talking about restoration.
Dave Goerman: That you know people have to live. People live in these watersheds. They have to live in these watersheds. You can't restore them to historic context.
Dave Goerman: And and they missed the point by the comment.
Dave Goerman: yes, what we're doing is investigating the history. A historical.
Dave Goerman: unnatural, the historic, natural, unaltered environment that tells us what is what is potentially possible in this site. Now you have to overlay and understand the modern constraints, the infrastructure
Dave Goerman: recalcitrant landowners that don't want any part of a project, or only give you a small portion of the valley to to restore resources within
Dave Goerman: the scope of the alterations that have occurred in the past. Sometimes they're too much.
Dave Goerman: You can't do restoration
Dave Goerman: but the modern constraints are gonna kind of tell you whether you can or can't, and, coupled with the next section.
Dave Goerman: tell you whether you can or can't actually achieve restoration. And if you can't achieve restoration.
Dave Goerman: That's an acceptable outcome.
Dave Goerman: but it falls into a different category of activity. And this is the problem as a regular regulator
Dave Goerman: and a regulatory agency. This is, some of the difficulty we have is is, people are calling things restoration that aren't.
Dave Goerman: And so the terms get muddled. The research that's being done by a lot of people.
Dave Goerman: You know, they're looking at restoration projects. Well, they're not actually restoration projects. So it gets very difficult.
Dave Goerman: From a perspective of understanding and developing programs and requirements and standardization
Dave Goerman: when things are are not properly categorized. So so modern constraints really inform whether you could or cannot achieve undoing the the alterations that occurred to that previously natural environment.
Dave Goerman: If you can't do it, and you can only armor it, or you can only do it partially. Then you're you're doing more stabilization and and protection of of infrastructure. And it doesn't fall in the category of restoration. And that is an okay outcome. And I think that's 1 of the things that people miss is that is an acceptable outcome because of the modern day constraints. And that's 1 of the things you follow through
Dave Goerman: that factors into the alternatives analysis, because you have to remember we're approving work in existing resources. So we have to have the benefits have to outweigh the harms that are going to occur.
Dave Goerman: The restoration and design modeling Ben and and Drew. Discuss this a a little a lot. I'm not gonna get too much into it. The 2D modeling is a godsend for for biologists like me, who aren't engineers. It gives a visual capacity to understanding the hydro dynamics on the site.
Dave Goerman: For stream channels and flood plains.
Dave Goerman: But understanding that the you know it informs about base level controls. What types of things you need to do to control, base level
Dave Goerman: and also protect against scour excessive scour in more developed areas or in anticipation of, you know, intensifying rainfall events.
Dave Goerman: so the goal here is design modeling. We're really looking to rest, reestablish the retentive systems in these lesser or more unconfined valleys. One of the things we're doing in Pennsylvania is we're also looking at using community based vegetation targeting.
Dave Goerman: We've just started trying to do this. And it's so. It's it's an early in the early stages, but it informs
Dave Goerman: practitioners a better approach to picking and identifying species that are rep. That should be used in those sites in a site context
Dave Goerman: especially related to the hydrology.
Dave Goerman: One of the, you know, when you consistently apply this kind of approach. It does allow people to better predict the outcomes
Dave Goerman: when we're calling rest, things, restoration, that our restoration.
Dave Goerman: in other words, the reestablishment they're reestablishing the resource. Many of these areas.
Dave Goerman: We're wetland. They're no longer wetland. They don't support wetlands or they're remnants of wetlands. We're getting wetlands reestablished in the flood plain and context of the watershed.
Dave Goerman: You're rehabilitating the flood plain in the stream channel in relation to the watershed and the other resources. So so we're better able to predict the ecological uplifts and the and pollution reduction capacity of these systems. But there's a lot of benefits as as the
Dave Goerman: Ben and Drew mentioned
Dave Goerman: earlier that that aren't accounted for. That should be accounted for and and some of those are pollution, reduction, or or treating of of nutrients, excessive excessive nutrients.
Dave Goerman: But you also get flood reductions. So you get public safety benefits and more resilient riverine systems.
Dave Goerman: Also. So the other things when you fall out of restoration. These are more of a management of the resource category where you're managing the resource to to accomplish them. An objective that's usually related to some other larger programmatic goal, like water quality, improvement.
Dave Goerman: or habitat or protection of infrastructure. And so by by using the terminology. And following a more consistent process, we're able to put projects into into these broader categories, and that it does affect what permitting process they go through at the State level for us.
Dave Goerman: And we're working to better define that. So we know we can direct people to the correct permitting group
Dave Goerman: for their project, and not waste everybody's time and and energy and effort.
Dave Goerman: And that was it.
Karen Titus: Thanks, Dave.
Karen Titus: I'd like to introduce Jeff White now from MDE.
Jeff White: Do you guys hear me?
Karen Titus: Yes.
Jeff White: Awesome. Alright. Let me try. Share. Sorry I missed the the practice, Karen.
Jeff White: Alright. Do you guys see this.
Karen Titus: Looks good.
Karen Titus: oh.
Jeff White: Awesome. Okay, it's not coming up on my zoom. That's weird. Huh?
Jeff White: Okay, cool.
Jeff White: So this might be a little different.
Jeff White: Then say Dave's presentation or prior presentations.
Jeff White: So I'm not with our permanent shop here. I'm with our Tml Tml. Kind of the technical wing of our water and science administration. So this might be
Jeff White: from a slightly different perspective, since our shop doesn't actually have permitted authority. But what we can talk about. And what I'm gonna focus on here is.
Jeff White: you know.
Jeff White: stream restoration is part of a whole kind of a
Jeff White: the larger
Jeff White: Restoration hole that has been occurring and how that relates to achieving our water quality endpoints.
Jeff White: I think that's kind of important to tell the story of stream restoration in Maryland.
Jeff White: Or in order to tell this story of stream restoration in Maryland. It's kind of important to tell it in the context of all restoration. Since it's really only one piece of the puzzle. So this might be slightly different.
Jeff White: See? Okay, did did that advance? Sorry.
Jeff White: I just wanna make sure this is working. Okay, cool. Thank you.
Jeff White: So
Jeff White: I think to start.
Jeff White: maybe one thing to do with that, I think, would be good is to clarify. You know what are our water quality goals?
Jeff White: And within Maryland, I know for a lot of individual restoration or
Jeff White: individual restoration projects and have a number of different goals.
Jeff White: You know. Some could be Ej related, some could be climbing resilience. There's habitat, etc.
Jeff White: When we talk about. You know the program that I come from within, mbe, which is our watershed protection restoration and planning program which focuses on you know, we're responsible for Tml development.
Jeff White: integrated report development where quality standards, etc. A lot of times when we talk about our work quality goals or not. A lot of times. But.
Jeff White: generally speaking, when we talk about water quality goals, we're talking about water quality goals are associated with 3 or 3 section 3 or 3D. And the Clean Water act
Jeff White: which are really kind of 3 tiers, or that's how I'm kind of presenting them here.
Jeff White: So you know, tier. One might be achieving our Tmd loading goals for both local waters and downstream bay goals
Jeff White: tier. 2 might be achieving our water quality criteria
Jeff White: as it relates to where quality impairments for, say, sediment, nutrients, bacteria, toxics, chlorides temperature.
Jeff White: and then kind of at the top of this kind of 3 tiered. Maybe pyramid would be attainment of a water bodies designated use so that could be protection of aquatic life
Jeff White: water contact, recreation, water supply, fish, consumption, shellfish, harvest, etc.
Jeff White: You know we are. Our shop is integrating these other say, non, 3 or 3D goals of Ej. And climate resilience into everything we do.
Jeff White: But again, kind of the focal point of our shop. When we talked about water quality goals are these,
Jeff White: you know those that tie directly to section 3 or 3D. And the Clean Water act.
Jeff White: So I think it's important to frame that when we talk about stream restoration here in Maryland.
Jeff White: So
Jeff White: I I think the next thing we need to do is kind of, you know. Take a step back and say what has been done in Maryland in terms of water quality, restoration.
Jeff White: In the past decade, really, since the advent of the Chesapeake Bay, Tml.
Jeff White: And about the 2014 ish timeframe when our last generation phase one Ms 4 permits came out. There's really been an unprecedented amount of restoration within the State.
Jeff White: And you know that covers a a large gammon of things. So that's
Jeff White: wastewater treatment plan upgrades. So basically, all of our major municipal wastewater treatment plants have been upgraded to Emr technology.
Jeff White: There's been a ton of implementation and restoration within our agricultural sector. There's been a ton of enhancement of living resources. Whether it's the shore lines.
Jeff White: oyster, reef restoration, etc. And then kind of finally, here, which is really what I'm gonna focus on is urban store order management. Since that's kind of I think the the intended audience here most people where most people are coming from.
Jeff White: and you know, urban stormwater management.
Jeff White: Is largely our phase, one Ms. Fours. But it also includes our phase, 2 Ms. Floors, our our industrial storm water permit, etc. So there's restoration going on within all those different permits.
Jeff White: and kind, of the the graphics that are included here
Jeff White: are really just to show. And tying this back into stream restoration.
Jeff White: That really stream restoration is really a a small, smaller piece
Jeff White: of this overall Restoration portfolio. So this pie chart that you see here is taken from our the report out of our last financial assurance plans that are phase one Ms force have to submit.
Jeff White: and what that shows is the kind of percentage breakdown of instream versus programmatic or supplement practices that have been
Jeff White: implemented to our cheese to achieve our phase. One Ms. 4 requirements. What you see is that in stream is really a smaller portion of the total restoration requirement.
Jeff White: If you zoom out even further and say that that phase one of us 4 permit is only a
Jeff White: a part of the overall restoration portfolio that we kind of
Jeff White: across Maryland that we've documented before. Then it becomes even a smaller piece of that overall restoration. So that's just to say that, you know.
Jeff White: There's been a you know, a lot of talk about stream restoration a lot of it controversial. But this is just to point out that you know, we're really talking about
Jeff White: kind of a smaller piece of this overall restoration portfolio.
Jeff White: or of work that's being done.
Jeff White: So that said.
Jeff White: You know, the next kind of question becomes alright. So we've got all this restoration that's being done.
Jeff White: What impact are we seeing from all this restoration?
Jeff White: So again, I'm gonna relate back to our goals. So come at this from a Tml perspective, and both a water quality, criteria and designate use perspective. So from a Tml perspective.
Jeff White: one thing to note kind of upfront is that
Jeff White: in a lot of our Tmd. Elves and Tmdl watersheds, we don't have kind of that load accounting system.
Jeff White: So where we do have it is for the Chesapeake Bay. Tml.
Jeff White: we also have it for our section 319 grand watersheds. But that's only for nonpoint source only.
Jeff White: And then we also have it within our phase. One Ms. 4. Jurisdictions but again, that's only for the storm water, Wla portion of the Tml.
Jeff White: but there are a significant number of those
Jeff White: and what we're starting to see with. Oh, let me back up real quick. So
Jeff White: for those that aren't aware where that comes from is that within our phase one MS. 4. Permit, there is a requirement for local jurisdictions to
Jeff White: develop implementation plans towards their storm water, waste, load allocations and then sub subsequently, report progress towards those Wlas.
Jeff White: so anyway, then, that's been around since that kind of 2014 is timeframe when the last generation Ms. 4 permanent came out.
Jeff White: And what we're starting to see is that many of the phase one Ms. 4 s. Are starting to achieve those waste load allocations.
Jeff White: And we kind of anticipate that in the next, you know several years we're gonna see many more.
Jeff White: And what does this kind of tell us? So one thing it tells is that, you know.
Jeff White: achieving a lot of the Tmdl loading goals is possible like it.
Jeff White: you know, it is possible to to meet these goals, but what is maybe more difficult is, you know, achievement of. You know, the water quality criteria and the designated use which we haven't been able to, you know.
Jeff White: To maybe demonstrate thus far.
Jeff White: So then, that kind of ties back into. So
Jeff White: you know, we're able to demonstrate, maybe achievement of the Tml loading goals, or at least a portion of those Tmdl loading goals. You know, we have these work quality criteria that the Tmls are
Jeff White: that the Tmls are developed to address why aren't we meeting those criteria? And maybe many might say that.
Jeff White: you know, it's the even though there's this large amount of restoration that's been occurring. Maybe that restoration doesn't work. But I think what what I'm going to try to demonstrate here is that
Jeff White: that's a lot more complex and also that the Restoration is working
Jeff White: as a whole.
Jeff White: maybe, even though we aren't meeting the criteria. So what does that mean? Basically here, I've listed out
Jeff White: a lot of the challenges and questions that we're now faced with.
Jeff White: In terms of, you know why we aren't meeting the criteria, and I'm not going to go into, maybe all of these. But I'm just gonna highlight
Jeff White: a few of these questions. And these are all kind of technical questions. We're approaching this from a technical perspective.
Jeff White: And maybe you know, one of the 1st to point out is so.
Jeff White: you know, do we? You know, do we just need more time. You know, we know that there
Jeff White: lag times associated with achieving a lot of the water quality criteria. Let's think about, you know, nitrogen on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Well, that those lag times could apply to
Jeff White: many other pollutants. You know our B and P's function is, we predicted our models, you know? Do we need to tweak our models or greater reductions required?
Jeff White: Do we even have the necessary data to evaluate if we're achieving the criteria? So, for instance.
Jeff White: we know that in many instances we don't even have the resolution of data to be able to evaluate if we're meeting the criteria
Jeff White: So
Jeff White: you know, we're working on pilot pilot projects now, which I'll get into in a second to
Jeff White: to correct that
Jeff White: second, does a criterion even exist?
Jeff White: Is it possible possible that our assessments are flawed and then has work even to address maybe a particular stress, or even be gone?
Jeff White: The point here is that you know, there's this long list of all these technical issues that we're currently working to address some of these to kind of further.
Jeff White: you know. Further, our knowledge regarding restoration.
Jeff White: So, for instance, you know, we're working on the development of new modeling tools to be able to get to go back and maybe reassess our older team yells.
Jeff White: We're working on new integrated report assessment methodology. So when you go back to one of the questions of
Jeff White: you know, our assessments flaw. So our biological assessments are done in a Maryland 8 digit watershed scale.
Jeff White: which is a fairly large scale.
Jeff White: One thing that we're doing now is kind of working on new methodologies to drill down and scale, to be able to perform those assessments at a much smaller sub watershed scale.
Jeff White: Where maybe we can see the effects of restoration
Jeff White: it. Maybe the effects of restoration are amplified.
Jeff White: whereas they're kind of mass at that 8 digit watershed scale.
Jeff White: We're also developing new water quality criteria. And we're embarking on new data collection efforts. So going back to the resolution issue
Jeff White: within our title order bodies
Jeff White: as it relates to nutrient criteria.
Jeff White: Our nutrient related criteria
Jeff White: we don't have the resolution of data now to even to even begin to assess the full range of criteria.
Jeff White: So we have pilot projects. Look.
Jeff White: collecting that necessary resolution data to be able to assess that full range of criteria
Jeff White: and we're kind of starting out in areas where we think we have a high likelihood that we're going to meet those criteria but we're working on those pilots. And then hopefully, other pilots will follow.
Jeff White: And then, lastly.
Jeff White: we're also working on updates to our biological stressor identification process. We're kind of embarking on that now.
Jeff White: So you know, it's possible that maybe in the
Jeff White: you know our, the stressor identification we've done to date. Maybe some of the methodology was flawed. Maybe we're not even incorporating certain strict, you know. Maybe we're not even looking at certain stressors impacting biology.
Jeff White: And if that were the case, what would the expectation be that we would see improve biology within our non title streams if we're not even addressing those stressors that might have an impact.
Jeff White: You know. Lastly.
Jeff White: I'm gonna touch. Go back to
Jeff White: the question of has work to address a particular stress or even begun
Jeff White: A lot of the restoration that has been done to date has really had kind of a nutrient sentiment focus. However, you know, our current stress or identification.
Jeff White: we per our current stress or identification. We know that there are a lot of other
Jeff White: impairing substances or pollutants out there that are impacting biology. So, for instance, chloride. And
Jeff White: really, the work to address chloride levels within the state has really just begun now. So you know, would be, why would we have the expectation that we would see biological improvement when we know there are certain stressors that haven't even begun to
Jeff White: be addressed yet? Really. And that work is just beginning. Now.
Jeff White: So the point here is just to identify that we have all these technical questions. And even though restoration isn't really.
Jeff White: There's been a ton of restoration done in Maryland.
Jeff White: we're not achieving order, quality criteria. But we know we have all these technical questions that still need to be addressed in order to get to that point.
Jeff White: So even though
Jeff White: we're not at that point yet, I think what we want to highlight is that, you know that doesn't mean that the Restoration, the
Jeff White: again, the incredible amount of restoration that's been done thus far has been in vain, and I would say, quite the opposite. That's really been quite successful as a whole, because we're seeing a lot of progress, even though we're not necessarily meeting the criteria.
Jeff White: So we're seeing improvements in Tntp and Tss. Both concentrations and loads and other nutrient related parameters, and that's been documented via analyses that Usgs has done using their non title monitoring network work that Dnr has done using their core trend non title, monitoring network, and also kind of individual
Jeff White: projects that we mbe have embarked on. So, for instance, we've been monitoring the Corsica River watershed for almost 20 years now.
Jeff White: And what we're seeing we model the not title tributaries draining to the tidal Corsica. What we see are again just like Dr. And us have documented, we see declining concentrations and loads and nutrients parameters.
Jeff White: we've also done work within the Baltimore Harbor. Really, to assess. You know, the upgrades to our major wastewater treatment plants, potassical wastewater treatment. Plan. Again, what we're seeing are lower, nutrient species in the watercom. We're seeing decrease chlorophylla, particularly in those surface waters.
Jeff White: and then, also as just another example, we've really delved into our the Ms 4 monitoring data that's been collected for about 20 years as well. And we see that really, when we have a a good good quality data and a great record of data, we can really pinpoint
Jeff White: the success of those restorations. And we see it in the flow. Information in the chemical information, for those, you know, is the sediment parameters and nutrient parameters.
Jeff White: in addition, you know, we've also seen
Jeff White: incredible improvement in bacteria concentrations in the Baltimore Harbor, and the non title tributary stream to the Hog Harbor. So, for instance, you know, Baltimore city has been collecting data there for over a decade now.
Jeff White: and we really see incredibly high bacteria concentrations come significantly down. And we're saying the percent of time that we're exceeding the standard for bacteria also come way down, and that's due to, you know, the an incredible amount of work the city has been doing both via their consent decree to address Sso. And via their, you know, programs operated under their Ms. 4
Jeff White: you know, we also have, a number of water quality. Do listings, maybe not necessarily for nutrients and sediments, but for you know, that are due to maybe technical fixes or other restoration that's occurred. We've had incredible success with addressing low ph
Jeff White: impairments within Western Western Maryland that were due to acid mine drainage. We've had fish tissue d. Listings for both PCB. And Mercuries, which we know are due to, you know, reduced air emissions for Mercury, and both the natural attenuation of PCB's, and we have many others which maybe aren't.
Jeff White: you know, as easily tied to restoration work, but certainly could be
Jeff White: but all this to say that you know, we know we've seen.
Jeff White: You know, the restoration that's been done to date has had significant payoff, even though we know we're not meeting criteria.
Jeff White: So what are the conclusions? I think the conclusions are that warship restoration is complex.
Jeff White: Again, there's been an incredible amount, an incredible amount of restoration that's been implemented to date
Jeff White: and that restoration includes a wide variety of both structural upland in stream and annual practices.
Jeff White: In many cases that restoration has resulted in the achievement of our Tmdl loading goals. But we know that the water quality monitoring data hasn't demonstrated that criteria being achieved.
Jeff White: There's a lot of different reasons for that. Complex reasons that we haven't achieved. Those were required criteria yet, but at the same time I don't think that shouldn't negate the importance of relevance to the work that's been done, and the significant progress has been made. So we kind of tie that all back to
Jeff White: stream restoration. I think one of the the key messages here is that?
Jeff White: yeah, I think the point that we're trying to make is that
Jeff White: you know, this is.
Jeff White: you know, the one of the the points of this webinar was really to find common ground and stream restoration. And I think what we're trying to say is that.
Jeff White: you know, achieving our work quality goals is really, you know, larger than just one single B and P stream restoration in this instance and that the collection to of work to date has really resulted in significant progress. But at the same time, there's a lot of technical questions that remain to be addressed for us to be able to make further progress. And eventually achieve our our ultimate goals.
Karen Titus: Thank you so much, Jeff. We appreciate you being here.
Karen Titus: and last, but not least, thank you so much to Brock Reggie from Virginia de Q.
Brock Reggi: Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.
Brock Reggi: little less detailed presentation coming up
Brock Reggi: so more of just what stream restoration is.
Brock Reggi: and in Virginia. And how kind of correlates! How's my screen looking.
Karen Titus: And good.
Brock Reggi: Okay. So
Brock Reggi: stream restoration in in Virginia is a look. I'm just gonna go kind of straightforward. Here. I'm I'm the stream restoration specialist and a lot of
Brock Reggi: stream restoration questions are diverted to me primarily. Sarah Woodford is another one that gets some stream stuff for the 4 or 4 program. But nutrient
Brock Reggi: driven questions, or I am kind of the
Brock Reggi: at least the next contact. And then I ask people if I don't know the answer. So the overview for today's presentation. The stream restoration of Virginia. Successful project criteria and current topics of interest.
Brock Reggi: just want to throw some stuff out here. Stream restoration in Virginia is a lot seems to be a little bit different than other States. We kind of work with the consultants a lot on like site selection, and pretty much driven by the nationwide permits that they acquire. And then they're and then the 4 0 4 process, and to just kind of go off script I wanted to just clarify, do the audience
Brock Reggi: some of the things that I look for as to
Brock Reggi: to show hold on a second to to kind of choose a good site
Brock Reggi: just to clarify. I'm gonna bring these up like we. I go out with somebody a call. We've kind of got. The. Everybody knows that we can. We approve or disapprove a site. And basically how we do that is, if it where falls in the Channel evolution model.
Brock Reggi: Basically, stable is a no stable at the bottom is a no, but in between there these one and 2 or one. Excuse me, 2 and 3 are pretty much yeses and 3 and 4. Here. It can be a maybe, if if the site meets criteria for restoration, and just to clarify criteria and restoration
Brock Reggi: currently in the State of Virginia is, if it if it meets 3 to 2 of the 3 features of a stream which is the dimension. You gotta change 2 of the 3 so you hit need to change the dimension.
Brock Reggi: either the slope
Brock Reggi: or the sinuosity. So those are those 3. That's what I go out and look and try to verify. If a stream meets restoration criteria in Virginia, just to kind of
Brock Reggi: give some terms. So hopefully avoid some questions, right? Wrong.
Brock Reggi: So, moving forward the Virginia, we it all started back with the Clean Water Act, the 4 4 1, and in 2,000 Virginia
Brock Reggi: General Assembly passed in Ontario Wetland law. It's a little bit independent. So we regulate the State regulates all water surfacing ground.
Brock Reggi: This, if you get this online, this link, this is a link to to our website. So where you can kind of figure out where you're adding the permit process. So I just kinda fly through just to save some time. This is the 1st window comes up for permits. We're for wetlands and streams for vwp.
Brock Reggi: Go to the the 5th button here, and it'll bring you to the 4 0 1 certification. And this is
Brock Reggi: there's 3 different parts to the 401. For in Virginia and basically not, the 1st one deals with it can't be make sure the sites not on some kind of compensation requirement this natural channel and part 2. This is
Brock Reggi: is the same, but it's kind of there's a little lenience kind of antiquated. So we do kind of, we're accepting other approaches for stream restoration and 3, the requiring monitoring requirements and performance standards. We'll get into a little bit later.
Brock Reggi: So basically to start off with 401. This was the last button on that 6.
Brock Reggi: Bulleted point 2 slides ago. This is, if you make the criteria, you meet your 27 requirements, and you meet the the 12 lists.
Brock Reggi: There's a 12
Brock Reggi: bullets or a 12
Brock Reggi: scenario list you go through to see if you meet the 401. This a 1 to a 12 listed in apex a.
Brock Reggi: If you meet all that, you just sign it and send it in, and then move forward with your permitting process. If you don't meet these, you think something's out of whack. You'll end up looking for a independent
Brock Reggi: IP or a general Vwp permit to do stream restoration in Virginia.
Brock Reggi: So that 12 list that's on the in the appendix. This is a 1-liner. I try to sum it up. It's a lot of law language just to kind of give straightforward.
Brock Reggi: You guys can kind of read through these in your leisure. If you have any questions, please just reach out. If you get stumped or have a question. If you're if you're working in Virginia, and you have a
Brock Reggi: interest and question on if you qualify for a 4 1.
Brock Reggi: So the it's pretty straightforward with, for what with the stream restoration in Virginia, if your stream is, if it meets one of those criterias into, you know, destabilizing. If you got lateral movement or you're not. If you're not transporting enough of the sediment coming in, or you're grading. There's a whole lot of different criteria. If you have vertical headcuts coming up through your system.
Brock Reggi: We there, it's really it's kind of a yes or no in Virginia. So there are some gray areas. But I think we all kind of. We usually come to a pretty good conclusion with the clients and the people looking to do restoration. And if the sites value, if the sites
Brock Reggi: correct for restoration and not to go into too much detail, but that 3 criteria of stream restoration.
Brock Reggi: We'll put you into stabilization versus restoration, and currently, nutrients.
Brock Reggi: Credits are not validated through Virginia on just stream stabilization. So it has to meet 2 of the 3 criteria to be restoration to get nutrient credit. So just as a picture in hopo Virginia, of a really big project that they put together is of kind of a. It was a very long. It might have been over mile, kind of valley, wall to valley wall. It was a wetland flood, plain
Brock Reggi: project that they end up with a trail you can see here on your right. So different projects have different success. Criteria
Brock Reggi: you know. You see, on the left it's fully buffered, and on the right there's a window there where people can still access the environment and kind of
Brock Reggi: have a place to spend time in nature. So success criteria in Virginia is just kind of dictated pretty much on a general
Brock Reggi: site by site basis. And what your what the overall goal is for the project, and if it meets the valley type.
Brock Reggi: so it's more some performance standards here
Brock Reggi: just is talking about the like the monitoring, for you know the nationwide 27, 3 for 4, one. You basically just submit an as built
Brock Reggi: what this talks about B here talks about the what the as built should include.
Brock Reggi: And then, see, this is what I was referring to as a lot of it is, you know.
Brock Reggi: after year one. The monitoring is based off the as built. But here's some things that you might need to have for your
Brock Reggi: your monitoring program, or you're monitoring per year 401 per me.
Brock Reggi: Another thing that I've we do in Virginia, and I kind of bring hope to everybody in the localities of the State know this now that we have a the Chesapeake Bay
Brock Reggi: recommended methods to verify, and stream restoration practices out there. This is pretty much what I've sent to all the localities. If you're interested in what you have to kind of, make sure your project looks like at the end of the day to continue receiving your nutrient credits through the state is we basically, we rely heavily on this. This document. Which is is easily found on the on the web. Or if you have your questions, just reach out and I can send you a copy.
Brock Reggi: So I'm just gonna bring out a few things. What in that? What's in that document? Basically, if you do a stream restoration
Brock Reggi: what? There's there's 3 different protocols that hasn't really been discussed, and I had anticipated that it was. But there's a protocol one which is resting sediment
Brock Reggi: from coming down this coming out of the watershed. There's a protocol, 2, which is your hyper. Read zone, and then there's a protocol. 3 which is flood. Plain attention of sediments trying to capture nutrients from going to Chesapeake Bay.
Brock Reggi: So if your project is is looking similar to this, or here's a list of stuff. If your banks are are not really stable. Or if your structures are kind of being bypassed.
Brock Reggi: you're you. You probably need to kind of start, analyze, try to figure out what's going on, and and try to figure out how to to stabilize or lose credits. And we'll talk if you're not familiar with this document. There's another chart at the end. It talks about what, how that is assessed, as far as losing credits and what how that process goes. So just bear with me for a minute. We'll get to that here in a second, so I'll talk to you a little bit about the protocol to assessment.
Brock Reggi: If you're for your hyper read zone. So the if your departure
Brock Reggi: from secure success is graded on, if you, if your departure for 20% of where your bank.
Brock Reggi: Yeah, we're from your bank full design. So in scenarios like this, if you're looking for your hyper region to make sure you meet your requirements, and and to continue your credits through the State.
Brock Reggi: The where's the stream? Is it? Is it still? Is it still in the design elevation, where, as it slipped under somewhere. Are you still within that 20 range
Brock Reggi: of of your
Brock Reggi: of your design? And or you can look in the back. Is your vegetation coming in. That's another one for your hyper exam. That may quality may
Brock Reggi: put you on a tractor of possibly losing credits or not being credits maintaining through the State. And as this is another example of kind of the stream losing its design, bank full and dropping below the anticipated hyper, read zone
Brock Reggi: per site.
Brock Reggi: So in protocol 3, this is just an add, this is a after design, or after built of a large project east of Richmond.
Brock Reggi: for like protocol, 3 type design where you're trying to attenuate nutrients on the flood plain. This is a this is basically at right after as built. But I it's hard to to show a picture of a flood plain, not collecting sediment, or what that looks like.
Brock Reggi: anything different than it's losing. It's connected to to the flow plane. And it's scenarios like that in the bottom left.
Brock Reggi: But or if you're no longer accessing a flood plain, you don't have rack lines those types of scenarios are are
Brock Reggi: would disqualify you for protocol, or you're not disqualify you completely. But you may reduce some of your anticipated crediting through Virginia, if your projects, no longer accessing the flow plane as intended through your design.
Brock Reggi: So this is
Brock Reggi: easy, straightforward to analyze your project, to make sure it's still meeting its performance. Standards going from left to right to protocol, one to protocol, 3 to protocol, 4.
Brock Reggi: Pretty straightforward on one. You just walk down, analyze the eroded areas and figure out a percentage of stream bank that's eroding
Brock Reggi: same same as with the protocol. To just walk up and down see places where you may not be meeting your hyper zone intended goals and analyze a percentage there. And it's same as protocol 3. Here on the far right?
Brock Reggi: Basically, the same stuck spot checks and analyze
Brock Reggi: percentages of the flood plain.
Brock Reggi: So all that being said and you're worried about all, how am I going to figure out what is is meeting and what's not meeting. It's pretty straightforward with percentages here on table 7 from the document where it's 0 to 10
Brock Reggi: you, you basically no needed. You know, you reinspect in 5 years
Brock Reggi: showing my major compromise 20 to 40. You need to figure out like I said, if your if your structures are being bypassed and you got some major bank failures, you should. You should do some immediate forensic investigations
Brock Reggi: and figure out how to and address those asap. And then 50% or more of your linear feet is is not stable. You're in project failure, and you may, you're may lose credit and or just the band a project and create a new stable channel.
Brock Reggi: So just to move forward in like the current issues in Virginia. We one big thing that we're dealing with and trying to avoid similar situations that other States are experiencing is
Brock Reggi: We have a little bit already in the northern part of the State. But this, the loss of trees is is a really big problem
Brock Reggi: for some groups, and I understood why understandably so. So. One thing is the fema. No rise can be very restrictive in the State of Virginia.
Brock Reggi: and has driven a lot of States to lower flood plains. So basically to familiarize those, they're just kind of getting into restoration. You have a priority. One restoration versus a priority, 2 restoration, which is very confusing, because I just went through protocols which protocol one protocol, 2. Protocol 3.
Brock Reggi: But so priorities is the type of restoration that you choose to mitigate a site with so priority, one is basically raising the channel to the existing flow plan, elevation, and not necessarily have to change the pattern, a whole lot just re bringing it back up to the original elevation and reconnecting it to the the historical flow plan, not necessarily as far historical as some of these program or
Brock Reggi: prior presentations as discussed. But just the existing elevation. If your your tie-ins at the top and the bottom, can, you know, help if it facilitate such a design? Where in protocol or the priority 2 is, you lower the flow plane and then create a new flip plane at a at the existing eroded
Brock Reggi: desired elevation for your top of bank and or bank full type scenario. So
Brock Reggi: this is one big issue in Virginia that we're seeing a lot of trouble with. And another thing, too, in Virginia to be aware of. Even planning trees can in some localities can. Click your your no rise restrictions. There's so like just a 10th to 100th of an inch, and some of these localities are are is enough to put you into a different permanent cycle to where you'd have to look at a clone or
Brock Reggi: or a changing in, or some kind of a alteration to permit to
Brock Reggi: facilitate a stream restoration and or just a planning plan
Brock Reggi: of a of a in in Virginia. So
Brock Reggi: that being said, some other current issues that kind of brought up earlier in the 401 dot 4. Was it 27 on the 401? You it it.
Brock Reggi: When that document came out we were required to use natural channel design
Brock Reggi: but that is not necessarily the case now, and the other, there are other options
Brock Reggi: that are out there in review. That's kind of been mentioned earlier
Brock Reggi: in the presentations. A lot they are. There's several beaver dam analogs out there right now. Stage zeroes.
Brock Reggi: not so many legacy sediments. It's kinda hard sometimes to
Brock Reggi: to discern between legacy, sediment, removal, and a priority 2.
Brock Reggi: So
Brock Reggi: they're not necessarily any projects that I know of that have
Brock Reggi: permitted directly under legacy, sediment, removal, mostly just kind of using language of priority to restoration. And so any of these.
Brock Reggi: Any of these type situations can be used in combination as long as it meets the appropriate valley type.
Brock Reggi: And the one other issue that's in the State currently is, if, even though the if the your 27 doesn't or the Federal Government doesn't require you to have a permit for stream work. Say, maybe it's in an ephemeral system, as some
Brock Reggi: current or recent
Brock Reggi: changes in the law have or court cases have dictated. Maybe a change on ordinary high water mark you, just check and make sure that you
Brock Reggi: talk to your State representative.
Brock Reggi: The restoration which would be would be me and or I can or anyone in the Vw. Department. That kind of sets you towards a a path, and making sure that you don't need a individual permit if even if the the core no longer.
Brock Reggi: Jur has jurisdiction. So just be be careful when you're doing in Virginia what your jurisdiction is that your jurisdiction of your stream.
Brock Reggi: and if there is a needed permit or not.
Brock Reggi: So that's about all for current issues
Brock Reggi: and my presentation. If you have any questions. Please feel free to reach out and call or email is probably the best way to get a hold of me.
Brock Reggi: And
Brock Reggi: if you have any questions on stream restoration, or other permitting
Brock Reggi: factors in Virginia, and I'll try to shoot you in the right direction. Appreciate the opportunity. Thanks.
Karen Titus: So much, Brock. We have some really great presentations, and we appreciate everybody taking the time and sharing your expertise. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time for questions. Believe it or not, we have scheduled to have about 30 min left, and somehow we got behind. Lisa Beth, did you wanna add anything, or are there any questions or anything that you want to say? We could? We did discuss, maybe doing a 4th one, and just having just addressing some of the questions.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: Yeah, they. I just wanted to thank all the speakers again. I thought the presentations were great. And also everyone who has posted in the chat. There's also good discussion going on. So like Karen mentioned, we're posting everything up on our we on our website, and we'll include the chat log as well. And I think,
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: you know, we'll go back through some of these questions and maybe discuss.
Lisa Fraley-McNeal: possibly having another webinar just just focused on answering all these unanswered questions, because I think there are definitely some good good discussion topics.
Beth Uhler: Yeah, I just wanna echo that and also just keep an eye out for the follow up items. And if there will be, you know an an announcement for a 4th webinar if everyone's interested. So thanks again to the presenters and everyone for attending.
Karen Titus: Thanks, everybody. And remember, if you're not a member, we'd love to have you join our network. We have a great lunch and learn coming up this Thursday, and we're going to be in Puerto Rico for a National Conference next April. So keep an eye out for all information about that thanks so much.
Karen Titus: Mike.
Beth Uhler: Nicole.