Regional partners

help stream-bank

projects flow
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Water is a prominent issue in the wake of drought, municipal service interconnections and the town of Boone’s planned siphoning of the New River near the Watauga/Ashe county line, but water quality is more than just protecting what flows along the creek bed.

Several area projects are geared toward protecting water quality by stabilizing and restoring stream banks. A restoration under way at the Deerfield United Methodist Church will bring a stream back to its historic route, a channel that shifted over time due to road construction, the filling in of its flood plain and the changing vegetation.

The National Committee for the New River spearheaded an effort with the church and a landowner to restore 1,500 linear feet of stream bank, including replacing a too-small culvert, sloping the bank to allow for flood absorption and restoring native plantings to create a natural riparian buffer that will resist erosion.

“We’re basically trying to reverse the past 70 years,” said Adam Williams, whose Brushy Fork Environmental Consulting is overseeing the three-week project. “Some areas have been filled in and we’re trying to give that flood-plain access. As the years went on, the water cut into the bank and is getting close to undermining the (Deerfield) road. Every time it flooded, the creek moved.”

Lynn Caldwell, restoration director for the National Committee of the New River, said the creek had shifted about 20 feet from its historic location, as verified by longtime neighbors of the properties. On-site willows were trimmed into “live stakes” and poked into the buffer and were quickly sprouting.

Later in the year, when the weather is cooler, the banks will be planted with silky dogwood, elderberry and other native plants that thrive in wet ground and whose root systems help hold soil in place.

The banks are also fortified with rock structures and veins, roots and logs, with a few slower pools left to increase aquatic habitat and give floodwaters room to spread out. The project cost $214,000 and the property owners donated conservation easements of 25 feet on each side of the creek so the buffers will remain permanently in place.

“The church members have been just great,” Caldwell said. “They approached us and they’ve been very supportive.”

Brushy Fork Environmental Consulting is also undertaking a Boone Creek restoration in alliance with the National Committee for the New River, Appalachian State University, the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Boone Development Association and the Kraut Creek Committee. A grant from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund is paying for the rehabilitation effort at Boone Creek, which is also known as “Kraut Creek,” as well as the Deerfield restoration.

ASU crews began removing asphalt along a portion of the stream bank in downtown Boone, with plans to plant native vegetation along a 150-foot section of the creek. Another 600-foot section of the creek will be restored near Varsity Gymnasium. The projects will serve as demonstration models, which the Kraut Creek Committee members said would serve to inspire other property owners along the creek.

Nancy Reigel, who serves on the committee, said, “The beauty of all of this is that it came from a feasibility study to restore property all the way to the (ASU) Convocation Center.”

Reigel said there were 19 parcels of land in the downtown portion of the creek, with 15 different owners, which would require a unified effort.

She said the National Committee for the New River was supportive of the project because of efforts, such as Jana Carp’s, an ASU professor, whose planning and geography students compiled the feasibility study as a class project.

“There will be native plants instead of culverting the stream and that makes an attractive property,” Reigel said. “It will go from an eyesore to an amenity.”

ASU crews were already doing some of the grading work as a match to the grant, said Patrick Beville of the ASU Office of Design & Construction. The opposite side of the upper creek project is owned by the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, which has agreed to the restoration.

Watauga County received a $166,500 grant to restore a 500-foot section of bank along the Brookshire Park in Boone, with work completed last month. The bank had eroded due to shifting channels in the South Fork of the New River and the current was threatening to undermine a paved walking trail.

Boulders and native plants were added as enhancements to the project, and the county is also exploring funds to restore a portion of streambank on the adjoining property, which is under development as a soccer complex and future business park.