The Nov. 30, 2015 New York Times headline “Citing Urgency, World Leaders Converge on France for Climate Talks” topped an article that said “One of the largest gatherings of world leaders in history began a multinational effort Monday toward forging what many called the planet’s last, best hope to stave off the worst consequences of climate change.”

This new found “Urgency” by some inspired us to reflect on THI’s stream and wetland restoration projects over the last 20 years. Since our first project in 1995, Trout Headwaters has employed ecosystem-friendly “soft” biostabilization and riparian restoration strategies: even when that approach wasn’t the “flavor of the month”.

When many were trumpeting cookbook and quick-fix formulas to aquatic restoration as they dumped yet another truckload of rock into every stream they touched, THI continued to follow a very different path.
We have long known the best way to combat flooding from extreme weather events is to connect streams and rivers to their floodplains with revegetation and tree plantings so those floodplains can naturally soak up storm surge flows. We’ve also long known that deflecting floodwaters off manmade hardened banks only causes catastrophic damage downstream, in fact magnifying the negative effects of climate change events. That’s why THI was invited to partner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to refine climate-resilient techniques for stream stabilization and restoration and why a state regulator reviewing one of THI’s early landmark projects remarked that we had used a “Johnny Willowseed” approach.

The Paris talks also reminded us of a 2013 study printed in the American Society of Agronomy that shed new light on reconstructed wetlands. As a company that has worked to create, enhance and restore a significant number of wetland acres over the last two decades, we were very excited to hear that study reported constructed wetlands sequester carbon at an average annual rate of 2,150 pounds per acre. We did a little calculating, and it turns out that a conservative estimate of atmospheric carbon our work has helped to sequester is around 1,000 tons of carbon. To be fair, we’ve emitted some of our own carbon as we drove to and from project sites, and used equipment, but even being generous with our emissions, we’ve had a 10-times higher sequestration rate than emissions rate. We think that’s a pretty good by-product of freshwater resource restoration.

If you would like to discuss using a climate resilient approach to you your stream, river, wetland, or coastal project, contact THI for a free initial consultation.