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By Penelope B. Grenoble Long before the job finally got under way in June 2012, the restoration of Malibu Lagoon, a 31-acre shallow water embayment formed where Malibu Creek empties into the Pacific Ocean, had accumulated a reputation as of one of California’s most ecologically sensitive and politically contentious construction projects. Ecologically sensitive, because the object was to restore ecological balance to one of the state’s last naturally functioning lagoons; contentious, because opponents cl...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Structural Solutions, Watershed projects
By Margaret Buranen The tide of appreciation for wetlands is rising. It has come along with an understanding of how effectively they function in controlling erosion, flooding, and pollution from stormwater. Sadly, many acres of valuable US wetlands, especially coastal, have been lost in recent years. EPA defines saltwater and freshwater wetlands as “coastal” when they are within US Geological Survey (USGS) eight-digit hydrologic unit watersheds that drain in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic or Pacific...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Stormwater, Streambank Repair, Watershed projects
By Janice Kaspersen In March, EPA released results of its National Rivers and Stream Assessment. In some ways it makes for depressing reading—it shows that more than half the streams in the US are in bad shape. But there are some encouraging bits hidden in the report, too, or at least indications that we’re moving in the right direction to remedy the problems. The data are from a survey conducted in 2008 and 2009, the most recent nationwide information available; more than 2,000 sites across the country...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Stormwater Management, Streambank Repair, Watershed projects
The city of Newport, RI, had an existing section of retaining wall along the famed Ocean Avenue that needed to be replaced to ensure continued safe operation of the roadway. The failing 300-foot-long wall was built during the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration program. It was a typical robust cast-in-place design, which was standard practice for sea walls at that time. Chemical breakdown of the concrete and reinforcing steel, as well as of the steel scupper pipes within the wall, and sev...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Management, Shoreline Protection, Watershed projects
Written by Janet Aird Construction activities can generate 400 times more erosion than takes place on undisturbed land, according to the Planning and Zoning Division in Jefferson County, CO. Sediment, the most abundant form of water pollution, generally contains a mixture of clay, silt, and sand, with particles ranging in size from 0.004 millimeter (0.00016 inch) to 2 millimeters (0.08 inch) in diameter. More ominously, contaminants such as cadmium, mercury, lead, PCBs, PAHs, and many pesticides ma...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Pollutants, Sediment Control, Watershed projects
Written by Steve Goldberg “The city of New York has a world-class drinking water treatment system, and it keeps getting better,” says Bill Young of Young Environmental LLC. “What they’ve done is recognize how nature is the best for water purification, so New York City has gone upstate in New York and bought thousands of acres of reservoirs and buffer land, realizing that if they can keep the farms off and keep the roads off, and buffer them with forests and meadows, they’ll have clean water. And I ...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Stormwater Management, Streambank Repair, Watershed projects
Written by Carol Brzozowski Although erosion control is one of the smaller budget items on a construction site, it is nonetheless one of the most critical: Product performance can make or break regulatory compliance. Given the hit that the construction industry has taken in the past several years, erosion control specialists seek to provide clients effective solutions at affordable costs. Working in the Everglades In an immense and very environmentally sensitive job in the Florida Everglades early ...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Sediment Control, Stormwater Management, Watershed projects
EPA has released a new fact sheet as part of its Healthy Watersheds initiative describing the economic benefits of protecting healthy watersheds by highlighting examples from existing peer-reviewed literature and studies. EPA's Healthy Watersheds Initiative is intended to protect the Nation's remaining healthy watersheds, prevent them from becoming impaired, and accelerate restoration successes. It encourages interested states to take a strategic, systems approach to protecting healthy watersheds that r...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Watershed projects
By Janis Keating Controlling sediment concerns more than just state and federal regulators. In a recent Sarasota, FL, project, clean water was important to the resident fish as well as the developers of a world-class competitive rowing facility. “The project was a fishery relocation, draining a 40-acre lake. Cattleman Road was being extended, right through the lake we drained. We had to make another lake,” explains Shawn Riley of Vero Beach, FL’s StormWater Environmental (formerly known as Native L...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Sediment Control, Streambank Repair, Watershed projects
By Carol Brzozowski It’s home to 153 million people, or about 53% of the total US population. It generates tens of billions of dollars each year through industrial and business activities. It is the coast: the 95,331 miles of ocean and Great Lakes coastlines. And while the population continues to increase in coastal areas—3,600 people relocate to coastal areas each day, according to the Office of Coastal and Resource Management of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—the land is...... continue reading
From: Erosion Control Topics: Shoreline Protection, Streambank Repair, Watershed projects
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