Implementing Stream Corridor Restoration
Kelley Tucker
Ausable River Association
Wilmington, NY
Building momentum for protecting and restoring self-sustaining stream corridors within communities, with landowners and funders, and among local and state agencies is a long-term process. Challenges abound even when short-term objectives and long-term goals are communicated, understood, and shared. In 2010, the Ausable River Association - working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, Cortland Field Office - installed the first toe wood structure in the Adirondack Park of upstate New York. The small demonstration project on the West Branch Ausable River was an effort to convince permit regulators that natural stream restoration techniques had value for protected rivers. In 2011, two record-breaking floods, one in the spring and one in the autumn, the latter the result of Tropical Storm Irene, proved the resilience of the small project. The toe wood survived the storm, protected property and the integrity of the river’s reach, and demonstrated that repairing streams had value for flood management, ecosystem health, and community climate resilience.
Ten years later, the Ausable River Association and its partners have repaired roughly 13,000 linear feet of streams over 12 projects and removed two dams in the Ausable River watershed. More significantly, we’ve largely moved beyond spot repairs of streams based on protecting infrastructure or mending failed banks and on to a process of comprehensive assessment and planning. For example, thanks to New York State storm recovery funds, and working with experienced restoration partners, we completed a detailed functional assessment of the 12-mile lower East Branch Ausable River. That comprehensive assessment produced a restoration plan with 13 planned projects. One of those was completed in 2021, another is funded and shovel ready, and a third is in the design phase. During the same period, we developed a model for addressing stream barriers, replacing ten undersized and deteriorated culverts opening over 35 miles of native brook trout waters, restoring cold-water tributaries, and saving rural towns time and money.
Even though the process continues, and public support grows, the path to implementation remains fraught with challenges - most prominent being the search for consistent funding at the scale needed. This talk outlines one watershed nonprofit’s efforts to improve stream health, water quality, and biodiversity using natural stream restoration methods as a tool and working in largely rural underserved communities. We’ll explore the benefits and challenges of pursuing and maintaining public and private partnerships, identifying expertise, engaging landowners, communities, and donors.
About Kelley Tucker:
Kelley Tucker is executive director of the Ausable River Association in the Adirondack Park of upstate NY. She has worked for 26 years in the national, international, and local non-profit conservation sectors moving science and technical knowledge into public discussions and implementing innovative, locally-driven, on-the-ground solutions that protect freshwater and wildlife, sustain ecological diversity, and provide local communities with tools for economic and climate resilience.
The Ausable River Association works with communities to protect their streams and lakes. The 512 square mile Ausable River watershed is part of the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park of upstate New York. Professional science and technical staff repair stream channel and floodplain health and replace culverts to improve climate resilience, monitor water quality and identify solutions to threats, assess and rebuild biodiverse habitats to protect native species, empower stewardship by providing information and tools to the public, and encourage inclusive, low-impact recreational access to Ausable waterways. They work closely with an array of government, nonprofit, academic, community, and landowner partners to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness.