After a local town replaced a failed culvert, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services deemed that the cascading of water caused by the perch in the culvert was too significant for fish to navigate up stream.

Original culvert.
Day 1:
The objective of fixing the perch was to allow fish a passage up the culvert to reach further up stream. We first eliminated the perch by filling the gaps with large rocks and smaller sediments like gravel and sand. We then built up the adjacent banks with rocks and sediment to create the necessary channel.

Day 2:
By the end of day two, the perch was eliminated and we had created a viable channel and pooling areas to aid aquatic life in their journey up stream via the culvert .



Day 3:
Having finished our stream bed restoration we look forward to monitoring the health of the aquatic life in the project area. This was only part of the total project. We also performed a bank soil stabilization on the other side of the road due to erosion concerns.


Our UAS picture shot from 50 feet above the project area.
All in all, it was a fun project. The town dropped off some larger stones and sand for use in the reconstruction. The only tools Envirespect Land Services used were three shovels, two five-gallon buckets, a peavey and three sets of hands.
Our next post will be about the upper end of the culvert where one of the stream banks needed soil stabilization.