Stream Restoration Program

Streams serve many purposes, including water supply, wildlife habitat, transportation, and recreation. A stream is a dynamic, complex system that includes not only the active channel but also the floodplain and the vegetated corridor along the streambank. A natural stream system remains stable while transporting a wide range of flows and sediment produced in its watershed. With the introduction of human-induced watershed disturbances including dams, mining, agriculture, timber harvest, and urbanization, the changes in flow and/or sediment supply significantly affect this equilibrium, causing the stream to become unstable and start adjusting toward a new equilibrium state. This transition typically causes significant changes to water quality, habitat, and adjacent property.

CVI is actively engaged in addressing these challenges through stream restoration for our public and private sector clients and stakeholders throughout the Mid-Atlantic Highlands region (West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia).

Stream restoration is the re-establishment of the general structure and function of a stream system that existed prior to disturbance. It is a holistic approach that requires an understanding of many physical and biological components of the stream system and its watershed. Restoration includes a broad range of measures including removing the watershed disturbances that are causing stream instability, installing structures and planting vegetation to protect streambanks and provide habitat, and reshaping unstable stream reaches into appropriately designed functional streams and associated floodplains.

CVI provides regulatory agency 
coordination and preparation of
necessary permit applications

CVI offers planning, design, and construction management services across the stream restoration industry, including the following:

• Assessing and identifying stream stability problems, such as eroding banks, sedimentation, impediments to stream flow, etc.
• Prioritizing sites according to criteria such as threats to infrastructure or property while taking into account urgency, severity, and feasibility.
• Providing regulatory agency coordination and preparing necessary permit applications.
• Developing possible solutions, including conceptual and final designs with technical specifications and cost estimates.
• Providing on-site construction management services to contractors to ensure projects are built to design standards.
• Monitoring projects for several years following construction to document project success and identify any damage that may have developed.

CVI provides a range of resources in the stream restoration industry, including a team that is comprised of scientists and engineers of several disciplines-hydrologists, ecologists, geologists, civil engineers-many of whom have received training through Wildland Hydrology Inc. (Rosgen Levels I-V). In addition to strong stream restoration capabilities, CVI offers expertise in watershed planning, wetland delineation and mitigation, decentralized wastewater treatment, environmental research and outreach, educational development through training workshops, and remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) services.

 Identification of stream stability issues such as eroding streambanks, sedimentation, and impediments to stream flow may be assessed by CVI before initiating stream restoration projects
 

On-site construction management
services can be provided to contractors
by CVI to ensure projects are built
to design standards