Stabilized Fording Sites
Since crop and pasture lands often straddle watercourses, providing safe crossings for livestock and equipment with reduced potential for negative water quality effects is critical. Additionally, watering livestock at rivers is often the only practical option for agricultural producers. The KWRC has used stable fording sites as both watering locations for livestock as well as crossings for farm equipment. The approaches are properly aligned and hardened, and the stream bottom is stabilized with hard rock to prevent erosion and rutting. Since 1994 the KWRC has installed 85 stabilized fording sites in the watershed.
Kennebecasis Watershed Restoration Committee
Worth Wading Into
Rock Sills
Our first rock sill installation was in Trout Creek in 1995. The intent of these structures is very similar to the digger logs, but can be used in much larger watercourses, narrowing and deepening over widened streams and rivers. Once the rock sills have done their job, and nature has taken over, they tend to blend into the natural surroundings and disappear from view. We now have rock sills on Smith's Creek and the Millstream River as well.
Benefits of Rock Sills:
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1. Increased fish habitat availability.
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2. Increased stream channel stability.
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3. Improved substrate and water conditions for fish including increased dissolved oxygen and lower water temperatures.
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4. Reduces the risk of the formation of ice jams.
Former Project Manager Brent Stanley checks over a rock sill on Trout Creek in 2007