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Another barrier down: Opens miles of habitat on Maryland’s Wolf Den Run
A barrier on Wolf Den Run in the Potomac Highlands of Maryland––a TU Priority Waters area––was among the many AOP projects TU tackled in 2024.
Imagine it’s a blistering hot summer day and your house has only one room that’s air-conditioned. But there’s a problem: The door operates only one way. You can leave the cool room, but you can’t go back in. That’s what happens when a dam or a perched culvert creates a blockage on a stream, and…
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Reconnection Report Card — New York Priority Waters
As it is throughout trout country, the reconnection of fragmented or dammed rivers resides at the core of TU's strategy to maintain and improve the habitat of New York’s wild trout. With our small but mighty team, TU's staff team in New York completed seven culvert replacements in 2024 while employing a seasonal field crew…
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Vander Werff joins TU staff to lead project work in CT
TU’s Northeast Conservation program has welcomed a key role player to the team. Jon C. Vander Werff is TU’s new Connecticut project manager. Vander Werff will orchestrate the 2025 Norwalk River Cannondale Dam (below) removal project, partnering with regional staff leads Tracy Brown and Jesse Vadala to execute this major project and connect our mission…
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AOP surveys continue in Driftless Area
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…
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Virginia project frees a stream — and trapped trout
Finding 45 brook trout in a single pool in a small creek may sound like a good thing. In the case of a small stream in Virginia’s mountains it was anything but. The fish were trapped in a small plunge pool beneath a perched culvert on Railroad Hollow, a small brook high in the Dry…
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Dams out: Maine’s Frost Gully Brook runs free again
In Freeport, Maine the rescue mission was launched with a single word. “Trout!” The operation was anticipated. Construction crews had just an hour prior knocked down a small dam on a tiny stream cutting through Freeport, Maine. As water rushed through the newly formed breach — with a pump aiding the pond-draining effort — the…
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Cooling Trout Rivers in a Warming Climate
Dam removals offer hope for coldwater trout in the face of climate change. For Bryan Burroughs, dam removals are the key to trout habitat restoration in the face of climate change. They have the potential to cool long stretches of river even more than climate change is expected to warm them over the coming decades. …
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