West Creek Conservancy has leveraged over $500,000 to execute some priority stream restorations within the West Creek Watershed! These transformative projects are helping to re-naturalize some of the remaining streams that we have in our region. This allows us to co-habitat urban and the natural world in a real, organic way.
The Buckeye site is located in the headwaters of West Creek, off of Broadview Road in Parma. The project restores the stream from its current, channelized state, to a more naturalized state.
This includes adding a meandering path to the stream, as well as adding an enhanced floodplain, to where there were two sharp turns, to give it a more efficient structure. It will also allow the stream to “breath” by giving it access to a flood plain with constructed wetlands, thus expanding the floodplain to over five times the appropriate bank full width, giving more opportunities for retention.
The project also calls to have a biomimic’d wetland retention berm installed to catch flow from the nearby parking lot’s impervious surface runoff, therefore allowing access for infiltration and pollutants to settle out. This project will move proposed channel towards the back portion of the property between the Bigelow lot and the Sunrise Living Center, thereby providing a larger front portion of the lot.
BioHabitats will start construction in the fall of 2018, and be completed by the spring of 2019. The goal of this restoration project is to restore approximately 700 linear feet of stream and connect it to a floodplain through two objectives:
1) a possible proposed water quality basin for existing parking lot stormwater runoff, and
2) soften the current bends and remeander the stream while connecting to a floodplain to restore it back to a more natural state.
Buckeye Stream Restoration Concept Design
West Creek Conservancy will restore stream, floodplain, and wetland habitat to improve water quality and habitat quality for the West Creek Watershed at the Coventry Drive Stream Stabilization site. WCC recently purchased a residential property adjacent to the Coventry Drive culvert that not only provides a suitable staging area, but also space to perform restoration activities. The goals for the project include the following:
Goal 1: To restore + 200 LF of unstable streambank and aggrade + 300 LF of streambed.
Objective A – Reconnect floodplain (cutting back eroding steep slope).
Objective B – Relocate 120 LF of stream channel. Stabilize the streambank and stream bed.
The Coventry Drive Stream Stabilization Project shall commence after 3/1/2018 and be completed by 12/31/2018.
The approach of the EnviroScience team is always to provide a stable foundation for ecological function and recovery. This goal is accomplished by carefully evaluating the existing conditions, watershed, and indicators of impairments through morphologic and topographic survey, then developing design strategies to remove or minimize those impairments. The restoration process includes permitting with local and federal agencies.
This West Creek tributary flows in a northeasterly direction into West Creek.
In summary, the current concept will adjust the base elevation of the stream through a raised grade approach. The floodplain will be excavated across from the unstable 10 ft high slope to alleviate erosive energies. Simultaneously, the unstable bank will undergo bank stabilization using a combination of toe rock, bioengineering, and branch layering. Moving upstream, several riffles will undergo a minor raise grade approach to re-establish a more accessible floodplain relationship. Lastly, the stream will be relocated away from the shallow landslide to allow space for streambank and slope stabilization.
Coventry Drive Stream Restoration Concept
These restoration projects are made possible by the support of our members, partners, supporters, and funding sources that awarded us the funds to execute them at a high level! If you have any further questions about these efforts, please contact our CLE Project Manager, Peter, at: peter@westcreek.org