Wildlife Protection

Keeping It Simple: Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

Logs and root wads make a "lifeless" stream habitable

Imagine what a stream looks like after it has been dredged for gravel. Picture piles of gravel debris pushed up against the stream bank. That was the scene at Seeley Creek in Chemung County, New York, when the New York State Department of Transportation began to reconstruct a section of State Route 14 next to the creek. To stabilize the stream bank and reduce erosion and to create aquatic habitat (no aquatic life was evident at the time), contractors placed large logs with intact root wads in trenches cut into the stream bank. They overlapped the logs and braced them with stone to ensure bank stability. The technique worked. Seeley Creek now has a stable bank...minnows are swimming in the pools around the logs and root wads...and there's plenty of habitat for small fish and aquatic organisms.

--Apr 25, 2003

Tom Markel, (607) 324-8370 or tmarkel@dot.state.ny.us

Stream bank stabilized using logs and root wads

New York State Department of Transportat photo

Logs and root wads stabilize Seeley Creek at State Route 14

On or Along Waterways - New York