Industrialization in the northeastern United States has resulted in the loss of thousands of acres of riparian habitat, the damming of countless rivers, and the channelization or outright enclosure of miles of streams. More than 1000 feet of one such stream, Little Valley Creek, one of Southeastern PA’s only trout production streams, was contained within a culvert beneath a suburban Philadelphia steel plant for the past 50 years. Redevelopment of this brownfield site into a commercial / residential "Town Center" provided the opportunity to daylight the stream and recreate its floodplain as the central feature of the development, which is located in the busy U.S. Route 202 business corridor. Natural Stream Channel Design was used to prepare a native-plant landscaped stream corridor restoration plan. All of the new stream channel parameters (e.g., bankfull width, depth, meander pattern, floodprone width, channel and bank composition, etc.) were modeled on an undisturbed reference reach of the stream just upgradient of the site.
Results/Conclusions
Stream corridor construction began in late summer of 2008 and is continuing. In addition to examining first year colonization of the site by fauna and additional flora, the presentation will highlight construction methods and some of the realities (challenges) of large restoration projects. Redevelopment of riparian-based industrial sites provides excellent opportunities to restore ecosystem functions such as water quality enhancement, groundwater recharge, connectivity of aquatic populations, and both instream and riparian biodiversity.
