Currents: The latest from Stream Dynamics

Work has resumed at SWEC's La Mancha Wetland Project. We estimate it will take 2-3 weeks to finish this phase of the project, which consists of excavating a deep pond connected to an existing marsh. The pond will fill with groundwater and will provide year-round habitat for fish and other aquatic creatures, even when the river is dry. The next and final phase of the project will be to construct a connecting channel across the IBWC floodway to the river.

We'll post frequent progress reports here. Scroll down for older posts.

January 28. Day eight of construction.

Ponded areas are significantly larger and will soon be connected to make a large area of aquatic habitat. Just what this area needs!

January 27. Day seven of construction.

Anybody need any big chunks of concrete? Maybe repurpose them for flagstones? We've got plenty that were buried on the site. Despite the challenge of moving all that concrete, Van and Mike are making progress. Today they started work on another pond area (see below), that will eventually be connected to the other ponds, creating one large aquatic feature.

Van explains where the new channel will go while Frankie observes.

January 26. Day six of construction.

Wow! Van and Mike moved mad amounts of dirt today. The hill on the neighbor's property is gone, as is much of the berm that was on the west side of the basin. It is exciting how much the site has been transformed. You can now begin to glimpse the outlines of the final design. And, these guys are really handy with their machines. Check out Van popping a wheelie on the excavator below. Don't try this at home!

January 25. Day five of construction.

Van and Mike continue to move massive amounts of dirt as they lower the existing hill on the neighbor's property (with permission!) and push out the existing west berm around SWEC's property. The end result will be a larger wetland, better access and a more attractive landscape overall. They've also enlarged the new pond, now down to about six feet depth. This pond will eventually be connected to the existing pond on the north end of the property, creating a much larger area of fish habitat.

Looking south. Much of the previous berm on the right has been lowered and pushed out of the photo. Frankie inspects the day's work.

January 21. Day three of construction.

Van and Mike worked until dark again. They moved a lot of dirt! The pond in the foreground (which didn't exist three days ago) is down to about six feet. The pile of concrete rubble from yesterday has been distributed strategically around the site. It's slow going, but we're making progress.

January 20. Day two of construction.

One of the challenges we face in excavating a deep, perennial pond at the site is the large quantity of concrete rubble buried there.

(The donor of the property--now deceased--did not inform us that the site had been used to dispose of concrete waste from a street reconstruction project. I guess there's no such thing as a free lunch!)

So, while that slows down the digging considerably, we're making lemonade by relocating the concrete around the perimeter of the site, and actually putting some back in the pond to create habitat for fish, insects and even turtles (think sunbathing rocks).

Here's an example of what we're dealing with. This is the pile of concrete that our Van has removed in just one day's digging.

January 19. Day one of construction.

Today the two pieces of heavy equipment arrived at the project site: an excavator on tracks that can swivel 360 degrees with a large shovel, and a big bulldozer.

Our contractor for the dirt work is Stream Dynamics out of Silver City, owned by Van Clothier. Van and his company are well-known for their ecological restoration work as well as water harvesting projects. He has subcontracted with High Desert Consulting out of El Paso, owned by Mike Gaglio, who also has a lot of ecological restoration experience in the area. We chose these guys because they truly know their stuff when it comes to wetland restoration.

Here I am congratulating Mike after the first day of work.

January 18. Pre-construction.

Here's what the site looks like now. Note Picacho Peak in the background.

Se llevó a cabo una reunión con Vecinos de la Zona Valle del Sol, Red de Vecinos y el equipo de Stream Dynamics, Inc. con el propósito de dar seguimiento al proyecto de captación de agua en la zona Valle del Sol.

Marco/Propósito

En el marco del seguimiento al proyecto aprobado por la COCEF en el que dotará de cuencas y equipamiento para la captación del agua al parque ubicado sobre la Avenida Valle del Sol, se llevó a cabo una reunión en el que estuvieron presentes vecinos del sector, Red de Vecinos e integrantes de Stream Dymanics, Inc. que es la organización que apoyará con el diseño y supervisión de las adecuaciones que se le harán al parque ubicado a un costado de Villas Solares. En éste parque se pretende modificar de tal manera que se utilice el agua de lluvia para riego y el parque pueda tener una vida mas dinámica con plantas de la región, asi como aprovechar los estancaminetos que se hacen con la lluvia sobre el pavimento.

On Thursday, September 24th Stream Dynamics hosted a Bike Tour of water harvesting projects as part of the 11th annual Gila River Festival. Twenty bikes of all varieties joined us on a tour of 20 project sites. Although we have been building water harvesting projects within the Town of Silver City since 2008, our current project is to build 80 water harvesting projects! This ambitious mega-project is funded through a grant from the New Mexico Environment Department as part of their River Stewardship program. So far we have built 9 new projects, so we only have 71 more to go!

Water Harvesting creates public greenspaces within the right of way adjacent to the roads. These greenspaces are known to have a calming effect on the resident human population, especially drivers. As our streets become more shaded and beautiful, more people start walking and biking. This has been demonstrated effectively in Tucson, Arizona.

Last Fall, we went to a conference on Green Infrastructure in Tucson put on by the Border Environment Cooperation Commission. The best presentation was by guy named Dr. Richard Johnson, formerly with the Center for Disease Control in Washington, D.C. He has been studying the effects of infrastructure in cities for many years. He showed us amazing results. One example was of some public housing high rise complex in the industrial East. There were two identical high rise apartment buildings side by side, but they ran out of budget for landscaping and only landscaped one of the buildings. The front of one building had large trees and some nice grass and a relatively nice place to hang out, and the other building had bare dirt all around it. Low income people were randomly assigned apartments in the two buildings. A study was done years later about the living conditions at the complex. They looked at things like the incidence of various diseases, the crime rate, etc. The statistical evidence was overwhelming that the people who lived in the building with the nice landscaping led healthier, happier lives, spent more time outside, tended to know their neighbors, had a lower crime rate, and even a lower diabetes rate!

In Silver City, New Mexico we are following the good example of Watershed Management Group from Tucson Arizona. There is a growing culture of bicycling and water harvesting. These two things go hand in hand. We are creating beautiful spaces in our town, and then we enjoy walking and bicycling through them.

The last stop on the water harvesting tour was at the watering hole at the office of Stream Dynamics. Bike riding is thirsty work, and merits a cold beer at the end of the ride!

La Cienega de San Vicente Restoration Project has been ongoing with the New Mexico Environment Department for several years. Last summer, Stream Dynamics Inc. was hired by NMED to protect the Town of Silver City's sewer line across the creek channel with a constructed A-arm Crossvane.

Stream Dynamics Inc. visited our San Vicente Creek Crossvane today, to assess its success after a series of heavy monsoon rains… We are happy to say that it looks great after a tornado, and three great rain storms, including an event that topped bank full (1.15 in in 2 hours)! There are many native plants, wildflowers, and trees thriving in the constructed water harvesting basins, and along the floodplain. It looks so good, you can hardly tell we did anything at all!

At the end of May, Stream Dynamics, Inc. designed and oversaw the construction of a wetland feature in a spring fed creek at McKee Street Parkin Bayard, New Mexico. This neighborhood is blessed with a permanent springs in the high desert. We believe this is the headwaters of Cobre Creek. Working with Deming Excavating, Inc. and the City of Bayard, we cleaned out a blocked culvert and built a rock rundown to speed up floodwaters and reduce the flooding of the downstream neighbor's property. We also raised the base flow water table and created a wetland pond habitat for frogs and kids and dogs! The shore of the pond was planted with sedges, cattails, bulrushes. Willows were planted along the edge of the park to provide visual screening, and a native mint was planted for the residents to harvest. We will be monitoring this during the monsoons and posting updates, so stay tuned.

Restoration in the Borderlands: Wildcat Canyon is 14 miles east of Douglas Arizona and only 1 mile north of the Mexican border. This project, funded by the Department of Homeland Security began with a landform survey last September. In January we did the preliminary design, and we have constructed a series of 10 gully plugs and ponds that will re-wet the historic Giant Sacaton grasslands.

Jaramillo Creek in the Valles Caldera ran through a gully for 700 feet, draining the wetlands. The gully was plugged in seven places, creating seven ponds and a series of wetland swales and small channels. Work was completed on October 1, 2014.

Under Contract with the New Mexico Environment Department, Stream Dynamics, Inc. built a Rosgen Cross Vane to protect the sewer line in Silver City. This project included water harvesting diversions to constructed wetlands that were planted with a total of 175 native plants of 32 species, and seeded with 26 native species of native grasses, wildflowers and shrubs.  It had rained hard in Silver City at about 5:00 pm on Friday, August 1.  Van Clothier went down to the creek at 6:00, arriving moments before a flash flood came down the dry channel.  Watch as the leading edge of a flash flood begins flowing down the creek and also into two big water harvesting diversions.

Below this video is a gallery of pre-construction, post-construction, and action photos during the 2014 monsoon.

Water is guided in three ways: down the creek over the grade control, and into right and left diversion basins. This is a Rosgen cross-vane with an "A" arm and a Zuni bowl. It defines a riffle-run-pool-glide sequence in the creek.

We have replicated a pattern found in nature that dissipates energy with a plunge pool. Added to this are diversions to water harvesting basins on both banks.

On Friday, August 1 it rained very hard in Silver City at 5:00 pm. At 6:00 pm, Van Clothier went down to the creek, arriving just two minutes before this flash flood!

Arroyo San Vicente project works beautifully... watch a flash flood come down the main channel, hit the cross-vane and flow into the water harvesting basins!

On August 29, six Youth Conservation Corps students from Aldo Leopold High School did a water catchment/erosion control project at the Waterworks under the supervision of Andrew Lindlof of Stream Dynamics.

Runoff from the yard had been eroding out the abutment for the new bridge. The students filled the eroded area with rock to reinforce it, dug some catchment pits, and also built up a small berm to divert most of the runoff away from the bridge. They will be working on other water harvesting projects around town during the fall semester.

ALHS may send 50 middle-school students to work at the Waterworks and Silva Creek Botanical Gardens on Oct. 1. The rest of the semester, the crew will be working with Western New Mexico University to improve drainage on campus, creating a series of water harvesting features. More soon.

Text and photos by Nancy Gordon, Town of Silver City volunteer.

From Albuquerque Wildlife Federation publication, The Pine Cone, August 2014

The weekend after our big birthday event, AWF volunteers were delighted to return to the Valles Caldera and once again partner with Los Amigos de Valles Caldera on a restoration service project. This was our first time working in the Valle Jaramillo in the center of the Preserve.

Under the direction of Van Clothier of Stream Dynamics, volunteers built several rock structures to address headcut erosion and dug sod tiles and used them to plug gullies that were draining a slope wetland. It was gratifying to see that by the end of the work day, much more water was pooling and remaining in the wetland rather than running off! We look forward to seeing the health of this area improve over the coming years.