River Talks: Stream Restoration Across the Cumberland River Basin

Mekayle Houghton, Jed Grubbs, and Will Caplenor (Cumberland River Compact)

TALK AND PROJECT TOUR

Thursday, November 4th, 2021

12:00-1:00pm

City of Goodlettsville Auditorium 105 South Main Street Goodlettsville, TN 37072

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is a worldwide rallying cry for the protection and revival of ecosystems. Launching in 2021, the UN Decade continues to 2030 and aims restore ecosystems to achieve global goals.

Across the Cumberland River basin, the Compact leads and implements a variety of restoration projects to revive aquatic ecosystems. In this presentation, we will explore our approach to ecosystem restoration using techniques like dam removals, riparian plantings, and streambank stabilization.

We will highlight our recent restoration project in Moss Wright Park. The severely eroded banks of Mansker Creek, due to flashy, high volumes of stormwater runoff, were encroaching on the park’s greenway with a section of it nearly falling into the creek. Tons of sediment were being introduced into the creek every year – affecting the health of the creek and its aquatic inhabitants.

The Cumberland River Compact led a large-scale restoration of the creek to re-grade the banks, install a rock toe that would reduce the force of the water, and re-establish native vegetation with strong root systems to hold the soil in place. Several years later, the banks are grown in, the stream buffer is intact and additional phases of the project continue.