In 1995, Trout Headwaters, Inc (THI) was founded to provide service to private, non-profit, and government clients.  At a time when fewer than a handful of entities across the U.S. were providing stream, river or wetland restoration services, the company quickly became a recognized leader in “soft” biostabilization and riparian restoration strategies.

For many years the company has teamed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to develop and refine these environmentally superior techniques for stream stabilization and restoration.  A state regulator, reviewing one of THI’s early landmark projects remarked that we had used a “Johnny Willowseed” approach.  Working WITH nature has indeed been a precept of the firm since its founding and one that we’re immensely proud to continue through today.

Proven, Practical Innovation  

In 2001, THI began developing and testing proprietary technologies for river, stream and wetland inventory, assessment, design, and monitoring.  Ultimately, several of these processes were commercialized by sister company THI RiverWorks.  U.S. Patents for restoration methods, processes, and computer software were received beginning in 2006.

So while Trout Headwaters continues to offer the same services it did when first founded, the company has constantly changed and improved its process and its products.  This commitment to improving quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness has resulted in now more than 450 successful projects all across the U.S.  The company’s work has been featured in diverse publications including Land & Water, Erosion Control, Landscape Architect, Outdoor Life, and many others.

Customer Focus

Expect however our hallmark to remain always unchanged: A dedication to serving the nation’s most discriminating clients by delivering cost-effective and ecologically beneficial restoration products and services.

At THI our guiding principle is always to stay customer-focused. Each one of our clients has helped us achieve what we believe to be the lead position in the aquatic restoration industry.   But why take our word for it, listen to a sample of what our clients are saying:

“We have received award-winning attention for our sustainable, green design and development efforts, much of which is directly attributable to THI.” – Cielo Falls (NC)

“You and your team were nothing short of spectacular! Great communication on all projects and their status, along with an attitude that reflects your sincere care and passion for your profession consistently exceeded my expectations.” - 3 Peaks Ranch (MT)

“As you know I’ve worked with other firms on river restoration projects, prior to engaging THI.  As such, I have come to appreciate the quality of your firm’s work in an industry where many firms offer dramatic results but fail to deliver.”- River Ranch Restoration LLC (CO)

“Simply put, Trout Headwaters, Inc. is the transition captain, adding value by enhancing natural attributes of these ecologically important ranches.”- Live Water Properties (WY)

To learn more or contact us – Visit www.troutheadwaters.com

Image courtesy of NOAA.

Over the last few decades, the Chesapeake Bay states have pioneered new techniques to restore urban streams using diverse approaches such as channel redesign, improved stormwater conveyance, and removal of “legacy sediments” left behind in abandoned mill ponds.

Because several Bay states are considering a greater use of stream restoration as part of an overall watershed strategy, an expert panel has crafted four general protocols to define the pollutant load reductions associated with individual stream restoration projects.

A draft report released this spring titled, “Recommendations of the Expert Panel to Define Removal Rates for Individual Stream Restoration Projects,” helps define the four protocols that will be used to help meet nutrient and sediment load reduction targets for existing urban development under the Chesapeake Bay TMDL.

Stream restoration projects will be given credit for their ability to (1) Prevent sediment during storm flow; (2) Provide instream and riparian nutrient processing during base flow; (3) Increase floodplain reconnection volume; and (4) Increase dry channel regenerative stormwater conveyance as an upland stormwater retrofit.

The report says an individual stream restoration project may qualify for credit under one or more of the protocols, depending on its design and overall restoration approach.   In addition, the panel recommended several important environmental considerations for stream restoration projects to ensure they produce functional uplift for local streams.

Additional research on legacy sediment removal will be published later in 2013. The panel may reconvene for a one day workshop in Fall 2013 to review this research and update the protocols to incorporate these additional findings.

More: http://test.chesapeakebay.net/channel_files/19138/proposed_final_draft_stream_restoration_30113.pdf

Trout Headwaters, Inc. and cloud software company Socrata, have designed and built a new data analyzer for the National Mitigation Banking Association (NMBA) that is reliable, fast, and wholly interactive.

Mitigation Analyst (mitigationanalyst.org) is a new website available exclusively to NMBA members that takes hundreds of thousands of lines of raw data and transforms that data into useable information.  This powerful system enables rapid ‘mash-ups’ of multiple databases, including U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ORM, RIBITS, and others. Rapid visualizations like graphs, charts, and maps take only seconds to produce, enabling a quick analysis of market conditions in a selected service area.

NMBA – Members Map with Data 2013

This new tool for NMBA members was made possible by the timely convergence of an open data mandate with emerging cloud software technology.

“Mitigation Analyst will truly facilitate better decision-making for our members by bringing together market data which has been historically very challenging to access,” says the NMBA’s Randy Wilgis.  “The association is excited to be working with Trout Headwaters and Socrata to develop this innovative and valuable tool for our members.”

NMBA – RIBITS Bank Locations & ORMS Impacts 2009 – 2010 Map

With his first executive order, the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, President Obama ushered in a new era of open and accountable government. The President then backed up the order with the Open Government Directive, requiring federal agencies to take immediate, specific steps to achieve key milestones in transparency, participation, and collaboration.

“The increasing availability to public data has presented challenges, as these data sets become larger and more unwieldy,” says THI President and mitigationanalyst.org developer Michael Sprague. “While access to various government data is an important first step, making this data intelligent and useful represented a significant challenge. In that challenge, the NMBA found a significant opportunity to work with THI to build an interface that will create useful information from mounds of raw data.”

NMBA – Omaha District Wetland Credit Releases Pie Chart

Seattle-based cloud software company, Socrata, focuses exclusively on democratizing access to government data. The company helps organizations improve transparency and fact-based decision-making by efficiently delivering data in a user-friendly experience on web, mobile and machine-to-machine interfaces.

Visit the Mitigation Analyst website: http://www.mitigationanalyst.org
Read more about NMBA: http://www.mitigationbanking.org/

In a paper published in the Journal of American Water Resources, Brett Roper and others attempted to discover whether stream measurements made by different observers yield consistent classification of Rosgen stream types. The study, titled “The Role of Observer Variation in Determining Rosgen Stream Types in Northeastern Oregon Mountain Streams,” showed that in 66% of the evaluations, crews generated different results for the same stream.

Most discrepancies could be attributed to measurements performed for the calculation of a characteristic called the “entrenchment ratio.” Entrenchment is a measure of the vertical confinement (bank height) of the stream. The entrenchment ratio is determined by dividing the width of the flood prone area by the bankfull width. These differences were likely due to discrepancies in another measurement called “maximum bankfull depth.” Bankfull depth means the average vertical distance between the channel bed and the estimated water surface elevation required to completely fill the channel to a point above which water would enter the floodplain or intersect a terrace or hillslope. The differences in the assessment of this value, described as “inherently uncertain” by the study authors, often resulted in different determination of primary stream types.

Despite the classification system’s widespread use and popularity, studies like this one are clearly showing that the measurements the system relies upon are ambiguous, and can cause highly variable results within the same streams among different practitioners. These types of findings continue to call into question the adequacy of the Rosgen system in objectively characterizing stream morphology.

Read the full study: http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2008_roper_b001.pdf

While the study shows companies in general move forward when it comes to sustainability, it seems that they still make progress incrementally rather than taking the fast lane. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to learn about the current trends in sustainable business and this report presents six of them that are shifting now the business landscape.

Read more: http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/05/new-study-shows-latest-six-trends-corporate-sustainability/

A new book by Indiana University geologist and author Rebecca Lave dissects the controversy and what it means for the political economy of scientific fields. In “Fields and Streams: Stream Restoration, Neoliberalism and the Future of Environmental Science,” Lave asks several key questions that apply to the privatization and commercialization of knowledge, most importantly, “What (and who) confers authority within scientific fields?”

In the mid-1990’s Rosgen developed his formula-based Natural Channel Design (NCD) for stream and river restoration, and created a series of short-courses to teach the method to mostly young and mid-level stream restoration practitioners. Ranged against Rosgen and NCD are what Lave calls “the guardians of scientific legitimacy:” top level academic and agency scientists who denounce Rosgen.

Lave describes a 2003 meeting of 35 of “the most respected academics, agency staff, and consultants in stream restoration in the U.S.” Rosgen was included in the meeting. “Despite the fact that he has little formal training in restoration science, Rosgen is the primary educator of restoration practitioners in the U.S. and training in his approach is [often] considered preferable to a PhD,” writes Lave.

In fact, Rosgen’s NCD approach has been adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as dozens of state resource agencies, and it is NCD, not a university-produced, approved scientific approach, that is often required by regulatory agencies issuing stream permits. The main criticisms of NCD short-course training are that the courses and method are inadequate preparation for anyone to practice the complex science of stream restoration. In addition, when applied by inexperienced practitioners, the method may be applied inappropriately when a stream doesn’t “fit” into the NCD formula.

Matt Kondolf, a professor of geomorphology at University of California -  Berkeley, one of the critics, arrived late to that 2003 meeting, and “proceeded to let loose a shotgun blast of critique that sounded very loud in such a small room,” writes Lave. “It was, to put it mildly, uncomfortable.” In the decade since the meeting, despite criticism from top researchers, Rosgen hasn’t lost his swagger.

How is it that, despite the vocal opposition of experts “bearing academic sanctification in the form of prestigious degrees, job and publications,” arguing against the NCD approach in print, at conferences, and in short courses, NCD’s popularity has remained virtually unaffected?  Lave quoted one federal agency scientist as saying, “What I don’t understand is without any…real training or background or anything else, how does he get written into the regulations?”

In “Fields and Streams” Lave reveals that Rosgen’s NCD approach filled a niche at a time when there was rising interest in river restoration due to push-back against a utilitarian focus on waterways.  In the absence of a comprehensive design manual, certification program, or university course of study, Rosgen stepped in with NCD short courses that provided a unified, subjective structure for the stream restoration field, a common language with which to simplify and communicate complex ideas, and provided apparently credible educational credentials to create the perception of competence.

With a high demand for stream restoration professionals, agencies and others soon looked to Rosgen trainees as the standard. Then agencies and consulting firms began to require Rosgen training. Effective opposition proved too difficult for a disjointed, geographically scattered scientific community to make a cohesive argument against Rosgen with only the occasional paper or commentary here or there. But as failed projects begin to emerge, the opposition is beginning to gel. Another of the guardians, Martin Doyle, a professor of River Science and Policy at Duke University, was quoted in Fields and Streams as saying, “It seems like there’s a life cycle:  love Rosgen, get over-enamored with him, start to see some failures and shortcomings of the approach, and then start to do other things.”

Although stream restoration in the U.S. costs more than $1 billion annually, stream and river restoration and ecosystem services have traditionally been undervalued because most people in the U.S. are still able to open a tap and have all the clean water they want. However, the stakes are high enough to make sure money allocated to stream restoration is well-spent, as expensive project failures tend to dampen enthusiasm for future projects.

While Lave’s interest lies in the broader questions of how scientific knowledge is derived, disseminated, and accepted, at risk in the Rosgen Wars may be the legitimacy of an entire field of practice, and continued enthusiasm for restoring the freshwater resources we all share.

Order the Book > Fields and Streams: Stream Restoration, Neoliberalism and the Future of Environmental Science

Photo courtesy of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

The Seattle Times reported that a federal judge has ordered culvert repairs to ensure tribes have fish to catch, as guaranteed by their treaty rights. The ruling could have broader impact on other types of development.

A long-awaited tribal fishing-rights decision by a federal judge means the state must immediately accelerate more than $1 billion in repairs to culverts that run beneath state roads and block access to some 1,000 miles of salmon habitat.

The ruling comes out of the landmark 1974 Boldt decision, which upheld the rights of tribes to fish, and could result in other court-ordered restoration work, according to tribal leaders and policy experts.

“This culvert case is a ringing of the bell, OK you got to wake up,” said Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. “We have to protect and restore the environment while we continue to look creatively for ways to develop new job and industry opportunities.”

Read more:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020684064_tribesculvertsxml.html#.UVmf4fcQ2Ro.twitter

Of course, the factories where our dads worked and the towns where we lived were the source of this toxic sludge.  The waste of our industrialized hamlet flushed from thousands of pipes and ditches into this once vibrant cold-water river carved into the historic Mohawk Trail.

It would be many years before I would hear of, or understand, the importance of the Clean Water Act.  It would be many more years before clean water and aquatic life would return to the Millers River.

My own journey would carry me to every state in the U.S. and to many countries abroad, but my professional fate had long been sealed by this injured natural resource.  She would help to inform a lasting approach to environmental restoration, and I and many others would be there to learn from her example.

To learn about those working on behalf of this precious resource visit http://millerswatershed.org/

The exhibit displays 17 quilt panels made by 18 Central Oregon master quilters and hangs 40 feet tall. It will also feature custom-tied steelhead flies made by Sherry Steele, from Sisters, who designed and tied The Whychus Canyon Steelhead Fly to honor the Deschutes Land Trust’s Whychus Canyon Preserve.

After many years of restoration efforts, Whychus Creek was opened, protections were put in place, and fish were released into Metolius River. Locals say native fish are returning to spawn.

The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show is touring a giant quilt that tells the story of Whychus Creek and Metolius River restoration efforts in Oregon.

Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/01/quilt_that_tells_story_of_impa.html

Read more: http://www.sierraclub.org/lewisandclark/species/easterncottonwood.asp