The summer of 2024 was our second year having field technicians working across the Driftless Area to assess the condition, fish passage status and flood vulnerability of bridges and culverts on our coldwater streams.
This work is often termed “Aquatic Organism Passage” or AOP due to the broad ecosystem benefits that are achieved when our rivers and streams retain connectivity across habitats.
It may not always be top of mind for anglers, but rivers and streams are long, linear habitats that are highly vulnerable to fragmentation across several planes: upstream to downstream; instream to floodplain; groundwater to instream; and within the water column. River habitats historically were not afforded thoughtful consideration in decisions about infrastructure, land management and water use, leading to fragmentation that inhibits the overall system productivity and threatens long-term sustainability.
Until last summer, connectivity issues across the Driftless Area were only moderately understood. The USFWS Fish Passage Program regional staff indicated that the lack of information about systemic connectivity has been a significant concern for years, but limited resources and competing priorities of the myriad agencies managing watersheds, fisheries and road infrastructure have not allowed much progress in closing the knowledge gap.
Trout Unlimited set about to change that by amassing the financial resources and providing training and access to proven assessment methods to begin closing that gap.
Summer of 2023 saw a successful program with two crews of technicians canvassing Crawford, Richland, Jackson and Trempealeau counties. They exceeded our expectations for the pace of surveying and the quality of their observations, completing over 1,000 assessments and more than 200 rapid AIS and WiseH2O surveys.
In 2024, we were able to rehire two of those experienced crew members and were fortunate to leverage the skills and availability of this year’s Jeremy Brooks scholarship technician, Kyle Kamm to give us three great staff to continue our work. This small crew covered even more ground this summer, completing priority target assessments from St. Croix and Dunn counties down to Grant County.
What is next?
There are several necessary next steps. First, we’ll start requesting grants and donations toward next year’s crew. Whether or not we can continue having funds for summer positions depends on continual renewal of existing and expansion to new funding sources.
While that fundraising work is underway, we’ll also be summarizing the past two summers of data to generate reports, factsheets and presentations for counties, town boards and agencies. The comprehensive metrics we collect in the field offer a wealth of information for planning and management entities looking to prioritize their infrastructure replacement, resource management and hazard preparedness.
We also added AOP practices to our restoration program with NRCS. This will allow us to leverage financial assistance for culvert and small dam removal projects throughout the Driftless Area. We plan to use this tool collaboratively with counties, NGOs and agencies to address barriers that are not publicly owned.
How TU will help communities
There are local decision-makers at every city, village, town and county level who appreciate receiving this information to help them better plan and budget for their programs. Even those who “don’t have time right now to do anything about that” will make use of this information if it’s in their hands when the next flood hits or when a planned project falls through and they need a justifiable and clearly-scoped project to replace it.
We’re in the early planning stages of a towns & counties focused workshop to coincide with our annual symposium. If you are interested in learning more about culvert replacement work in the Driftless, please hold February 27 for that workshop.