Stream Restoration

The team had some repairs to digger logs which had undercut, shifted or changed
level in the substrate. All in all, the work
from the previous years had stood up quite
well. Unfortunately, many of the young
trees planted along the riverbanks of
various sites had been devoured by foraging
animals or accidentally mowed by
landowners at the start of Spring.
It was decided that an area of Creamery
Brook (Little River) above the Hwy 289
bridge in Brookfield would be mapped out
by NSSA’s Adopt-a-Stream personnel to
determine the scope of the work and how
many structures would be required. This 1.6
km stretch of stream behind the school was
a good candidate as it would add to the
ongoing restoration of this, the major
tributary of the Stewiacke river and
historically, the largest producer of Salmon
smolts in the Stewiacke watershed.

Our two Summer students provided by the
Clean NS Foundation, came on at the end of
June and after some training jumped in as
Team members in early July bringing in-river
labour strength to four personnel. The Team
leader was a recently certified Stream
Restoration Installer with credentials from
the NS Environment Dept. He, in fact,
provided large logs and tractor work from
his own nearby property. This was a boon to
our project planning.

It was decided that 15 structures would be
required, seven of them digger logs with
one or more intrinsic deflectors to narrow
the channel width, the remaining structures
wing deflectors placed at appropriate
intervals along the worksite’s length. No
heavy equipment (i.e: excavators) would be
required as the whole length of stream had
hayfields running along its entirety with an
access road entering from Carter Rd. and
running straight to the riverbank. The
landowner was happy to see us helping to
save his land from more bank erosion and
had the hay cut along the entire length to
give us some great access. Throughout the
June to September season the signage
erected by us at the road entrance attracted
a fair amount of landowners and other
citizens of Brookfield who heretofore had
no idea what stream restoration was all
about.

Water testing surveys continued on seven
inner Bay of Fundy streams (plus Creamery
Brook) using the test equipment supplied by
St. Mary’s U. to add regular data to their
CURA H20 database. Team personnel took
time out from the river structures to
perform this task every one or two weeks
depending on the distance of the rivers
from Brookfield.
After an unusually dry Summer (which
facilitated the in-stream placement of
structures to proceed more quickly than
first envisioned), young willows were
planted along both banks of the lower
section of stream where bank erosion had
been quite evident. Signage was also affixed
to trees at selected points along the 1.6 km
stretch and extra log and rebar material
(plus any litter) gathered up and carted out.
A River Walk was conducted on a bright,
cool late October morning and in addition
to CSA directors seven personnel from the
Brookfield Men’s Club showed up and,
during the tour, provided us with some
good contacts and inroads for future work
on this stream. The DFO personnel who
provide us with the funding through the
RFCPP program also came out and spent a
morning touring the worksite and
photographing the various in-stream
structures. They put in writing how
impressed they were with our use of the
funding they supply.

All in all, a successful season. Future work is
tentatively scheduled to be performed
downstream of the Hwy 289 bridge(or alternatively on Rutherford Brook further up the Stewiacke; a smolt producer historically second only to Creamery Brook)

Michael McAdam
Project Manager
CSA Stream Restoration