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Stream Restoration: Does It Work?

An analysis by Bria Dixon

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About Me

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  • University of Pennsylvania Graduate Student
  • Focused on recruiting students from populations who have been historically excluded from the environmental field
  • Environmental Policy Focus, Graduation Date Spring 2025
  • City Planner (ideally, DC) - Department of Transportation

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Overview

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  • The overarching purpose of the internship was to determine if the stream restoration work that DOEE has been doing is effective or not, alongside data migration, site visits, and performing rapid stream assessments using GIS mapping.
  • Primary work was done in a hybrid format with a combination of field work, field trips, and attending staff meetings in the District of Columbia
  • DOEE's Watershed Protection Division (WPD) work is important to the EPA because similar to the EPA, they work to protect and restore the environmental health of the District’s rivers and streams.

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What is stream restoration and why is it important?

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  • Stream restoration work focuses on stabilizing stream banks, improving water quality, and enhancing habitat conditions in streams across the District. To date the District has restored over 4.35 miles (23,000 ft) of stream in the District over the last decade.

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  • While performing my stream monitoring analysis, I collected and analyzed final results from multiple stream restoration monitoring reports, looking at several parameters including but not limited to water temperature, pH, turbidity, e.coli presence and the index of biological integrity for macroinvertebrates and fish.

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  • I worked closely with internal staff Matt English and Efeturi Oghenekaro. External partners included EarthSoft and COG.

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  • The data migration portion of my work was super important because this is the first time that DOEE is transferring the raw data to a database to make it easily accessible for internal staff across the agency and potentially give access to external partners.

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What is stream restoration and why is it important?

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What is stream restoration and why is it important?

  • I compared the water quality from the stream monitoring reports to DC’s water quality standards. I utilized the numeric criterion as a specific concentration of a chemical that shouldn’t be exceeded. The District’s numeric criteria can be found in Section 1104.8 in DC Municipal Regulations.
  • Stream restoration also improves water quality downstream. Reducing the amount of erosion in the stream helps the Anacostia, Potomac, and Chesapeake Bay to have less sediment. These restorations help us achieve goals in the Bay TMDL.

These effects are hard to capture, but are being tracked through other processes

  • Here are the water quality standards for rivers and streams effective 10/01/2010:

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  • E. coli does not exceed a single sample value of 410 MPN/100 mL;
  • Turbidity does not exceed 20 NTU above ambient turbidity as determined by DOEE; and
  • pH is greater than 6.0 and less than 8.5
  • Temperature does not exceed 32 degrees celsius

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Pope Branch

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Macroinvertebrate data collection

2012

Fish data collection in low reach

2014

Pope Branch stream restoration is complete

2016

Post restoration data collection

2017-2022

Pope Branch Stream Restoration Timeline

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Results

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Pope Branch Water Quality Data

DC Water Quality Standards

  • E. coli does not exceed a single sample value of 410 MPN/100 mL;
  • Turbidity does not exceed 20 NTU above ambient turbidity as determined by DOEE; and
  • pH is greater than 6.0 and less than 8.5
  • Temperature does not exceed 32 degrees celsius

Date

Water Temperature

pH

Turbidity

E.coli

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℃

-

NTU

MPN/100mL

01/17/2012

3.3

8.5

7.7

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03/05/2013

4.9

7.92

8.8

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05/20/2014

19.660727

7.493264

17.947481

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06/02/2015

26.900276

7.730686

8.229345

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04/27/2017

18.5

6.92

41

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08/31/2017

21.3

6.66

50

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11/14/2017

8.4

6.33

44

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05/08/2018

16.8

7.06

29

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09/19/2018

22.4

7.10

49

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11/20/2018

10.4

7.06

35

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04/30/2019

15.9

6.98

23

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08/20/2019

26.7

7.14

17

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12/19/2019

1.5

6.97

14

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06/22/2022

19.4

7.51

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167.4

09/08/2022

21.1

6.81

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198.9

11/14/2022

8.9

6.46

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61.3

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Pope Branch Macroinvertebrate Data

Sample Date

No. of Individuals Collected

Total No. of Taxa

MBSS IBI Score

MBSS IBI Verbal Ranking

04/30/2012

168

17

1.6

Very Poor

04/26/2017

169

17

2.1

Poor

09/08/2017

163

21

2.4

Poor

04/10/2018

156

22

2.7

Poor

08/09/2018

177

17

2.4

Poor

04/09/2019

121

14

2.1

Poor

09/17/2019

215

12

1.9

Very Poor

04/22/2022

174

19

2.1

Poor

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Pope Branch Fish Data

Fish Index Reach Study Area

Survey Date

No. of Species

MBSS FIBI Score

MBSS Verbal Ranking

07/16/2014

1

1.67

Very Poor

09/19/2018

3

1.67

Very Poor

07/26/2019

4

1.67

Poor

09/09/2020

4

2.33

Poor

07/19/2021

4

2.33

Poor

09/16/2022

4

2.33

Poor

07/18/2014

1

1.67

Very Poor

08/10/2017

2

1.00

Poor

07/25/2019

3

2.33

Poor

Lower Reach ‘A’

Lower Reach

‘B’

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Pope Branch Photos

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Did it work?

Pros

  • pH levels met DC Water Quality Standards
  • E. coli did not exceed 410 MPN/100mL
  • Consistency in number of macroinvertebrates
  • Increase in IBI score

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Cons

  • Turbidity exceeded 20 NTU above ambient turbidity as determined by DOEE
  • MBSS IBI rankings scored as poor or very poor
  • Lengthy & costly process
  • Requires trees to be cut down by the banks

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Data Limitations

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  • Out of 15 streams, only 5 had pre-restoration monitoring data​
  • Army corps requires monitoring after restoration, but details on what is required is slim. ​
  • Multiple years of data help establish statistical significance, so need to be aware of plans to restore a site multiple years in advance. Limited monitoring budget, especially for projects that haven’t started. ​
  • This requires DOEE to be more forward-thinking in what they will monitor​

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Systems Thinking

Stream restoration work constructs a problem statement by assessing the needs of the stream with evidence (heavy erosion, turbidity, contamination, wooded debris).

Planning efforts may bring together citizen groups, local agencies, and stakeholders to work together on plans for the stream restoration and environmental improvements.

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Special Thanks:

Matthew English, DOEE, C-StREAM, Randy Rowell, Bart Merrick, and the entire Summer 2023 C-StREAM cohort!