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Lopatcong Creek Restoration ongoing


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My firm was hired by Trout Unlimited (national staff) to restore 1 1/2 miles of the Lopat starting at the Morris Canal historic site above Stryker Road in Greenwich and Lopatcong townships and including the reach from Stryker Road to route 22. We will complete those two sections by this weekend. Then we take a break and come back to do the section below 22 along Lock Street which although is only 1/3 of the length, that stretch is half the work. 
 

Some pix of the work. I’ll give some explanations of the bank work later as I have to jump back in the river with my crew. 

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Edited by Bucksnbows
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This reach of river suffers from having been farmed too closely to the stream, channelization, a lack of trees and shrubs holding bank soils in place, vertical banks that keep the stream from accessing its floodplain in all but the most intense rain events as well as silted over in-stream habitat. The restoration addresses all of those concerns and this fall TU and other volunteers will plant native trees and shrubs throughout the restored areas and manage the non native plants such as oriental bittersweet vines as one example. This is a native brook trout and wild brown trout stream that also sees some stocked rainbows swim up from their stocking locations closer to P-burg. 

Edited by Bucksnbows
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I saw you working yesterday.  I thought the Mushlitz company that is doing the warehouse on the other side of the creek may have been doing something illegal and I actually called fish and game to ask.  You answered for them.  Cant wait for it to be completed.  That is my "I have 10 mins to fish" spot!!!!

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2 hours ago, Tuck said:

I saw you working yesterday.  I thought the Mushlitz company that is doing the warehouse on the other side of the creek may have been doing something illegal and I actually called fish and game to ask.  You answered for them.  Cant wait for it to be completed.  That is my "I have 10 mins to fish" spot!!!!

Good to see folks keeping an eye out for our rivers!  The Lopatcong feeds the Delaware which feeds water to Trenton, Camden, Philadelphia and other locations. The warehouse has been great and we are taking excess boulders off their hands and running them to the river to feed our excavator operator. 

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NJ’s best true limestone spring creek now at least looks like one again. It will take the bugs a single season to flourish, but the trout will tell the whole story in three to five years on this lengthy restoration. 

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