Heavyopp helping restore the Lamington River

[Bucksnbows]

What do you have planned for bank restoration?

I am sure there has to be a lot of compromise in play as my bet is your goals differs from that of the greens keepers on how things should look.

Nice place there I don't golf but I was a hunting guest there a few years back.

 

We've been addressing the banks as we go, but they were vertical in many places due to removing native trees and shrubs and from only growing grass down to the edges of the river.  We are educating them on the need for at least some riparian buffers and they have agreed to let us plant more on the banks and for them to add plantings in coming months and years.  If we can take a golf course like this and get some good habitat on it to expand fishing (for their members) opportunities for stocked and wild trout, we can take that model nationwide where golf courses and trout streams meet.  That potential client base is virtually unlimited and that is just for golf courses.  

 

The heads of the course are becoming well educated as are the owners and all are saying the right things.  But we will NEVER see golf courses allow a full 25' or more buffer on each side of their stream/river.  Their business is golf, not fishing.  We're trying to help them find a compromise and have both.  

[Heavyopp]

I'd be interested what the discussion would be if the course wanted to put stone walls on either side for aesthetics.

 

The river work is for the course -- It's privately owned by Fiddlers elbow

 

This is what they are doing to pretty up the river -- Making it natural and able to support trout 

 

Before it was just a straight, plain, flat waterway -- now it twists and turns and makes bubbles everywhere

 

Brian and the Urbani crew really know how to read a river -- They point and tell me what they want done and I try to make what they see a reality

 

It's a pretty good gig and I'm happy to be a part of it

 

Brian and the Fiddlers grounds superintendent due clash -- not about the river and what happens, but Trees -- Brian wants trees on the banks, to shade the water to make cool spots and create habitat

 

The grounds superintendent isn't so thrilled about the idea -- something about trees and golf just don't mix

 

 

I was typing as Brian added his comment --  What he said...

Edited December 13, 2015 by Heavyopp

[Heavyopp]

Are you putting the channel against that high bank in the third photo or on the lower bank side?

 

And are photos 2 and 3, before and after?

 

Pics 2 and 3 are finished product -- Pic 2 is downstream of pic 3 

[jakesbeard]

Maybe willow on one bank or the other?

[Bucksnbows]

I'd be interested what the discussion would be if the course wanted to put stone walls on either side for aesthetics.

 

This course has more or less done just that over the last 50 years and the reasons were to avoid more eroding banks.  That left them with all sorts of other problems which we are fixing now for them.  But to answer your question, they would require a NJ DEP permit to hard armor the banks, and then only if they are badly eroded.  Hard armoring using such things as gabion baskets (wire baskets full of rocks shaped roughly like a hay bale and stacked to hold eroded banks) are things of the past although still used extensively.  We restore natural processes and employ only native materials.  We never use wire, cable, rebar, etc. for our structures.  The better aesthetics as they are learning are natural point bars vegetated with native herbaceous species like Joe Pye Weed, black eyed Susan, goldenrod, milkweed, little bluestem, asters, etc., etc. and all flower at different times and all are native to our riparian areas here in NJ.

[Bucksnbows]

i really want to get involved in this work. any volunteering allowed?

 

Yes, but not on this particular project.  I am working to remove the remnant dam at Burnt Mills Road downstream about 1 1/2 river miles from Fiddler's and that will require some volunteer work.  But that is in early stages of funding and design.  I relied heavily on volunteers when I worked for Trout Unlimited, but now I do far less of that except where groups like TU are involved.  This one is private land and they can afford to do the right things and are so far.

[Bucksnbows]

Maybe willow on one bank or the other?

 

Yes, along with sycamore, various oaks, river birch and shrubs like red osier dogwood, silky and gray dogwood, buttonbush and others.  But they don't want nor could they accept trees and shrubs along the river where a fairway ends and the green is on the other side as is often the case on golf courses.  In those locations, we push for herbaceous plants to hold roots in the point bars.  They won't be tall enough to provide shade to cool the river, but at least they can greatly help hold the banks in place.  But next spring I will add some willow cuttings where possible.  I already planted all of the point bars with native seed mix.  Those banks get planted two more times with the same mix - once now, once in early spring, and the last time next summer - to ensure that high water events don't wash away all our native seed mix and to add to whatever we have a few months after each planting.  I added a bunch of native wildflower seeds known to do well on gravel bars/point bars that I collect locally each summer and fall.  

[jakesbeard]

Cool.

[MRMCR]

Maybe willow on one bank or the other?

Willow, while having a strong root structure , is a real messy tree and not liked by golf course guys.......and aspirin originally came from willow trees....

Edited December 13, 2015 by MRMCR

[Rusty]

i really want to get involved in this work. any volunteering allowed?

 

Be careful what you wish for, I will be spending all of my Saturdays in April "volunteering" on one of Brian's projects.  

 

 

Edited December 13, 2015 by Rusty

[jakesbeard]

Willow, while having a strong root structure , is a real messy tree and not liked by golf course guys.......and aspirin originally came from willow trees....

I knew about the aspirin the Indians and colonists used willow bark as a tea or applied topicly as a pain reliever and that's what gave them the idea to extract the active ingreadiant acidelacid which they new synthasise to make aspirin BUT I had no idea the golf guys had a negative attitude about them and that is a shame because like you said ROOTS Willows got me big time.

[Kype]

Be careful what you wish for, I will be spending all of my Saturdays in April "volunteering" on one of Brian's projects.  

 

 

sign me up. i think river restoration is cool. sometimes i wish i could do it my self lol. but i would need a heavy duty back brace to place boulders lol

[MRMCR]

I knew about the aspirin the Indians and colonists used willow bark as a tea or applied topicly as a pain reliever and that's what gave them the idea to extract the active ingreadiant acidelacid which they new synthasise to make aspirin BUT I had no idea the golf guys had a negative attitude about them and that is a shame because like you said ROOTS Willows got me big time.

I was thinking salix....salicylic acid ........