Armed with hand tools, a chain saw, a come-along (hand winch), waders and a canoe, equipment funded in part by a generous American Canoe Association/LL Bean “Club Fostered Stewardship” grant, the WTK cut, shuttled and secured the debris out of the floodway downstream and cleared three passageways through the trestle.
Of course, you may wonder about the potential disruption to habitat caused by a team of eager stream cleaners. Indeed, one of the things we are careful about in opening logjams is minimizing damage to habitat. After all, ducks can hide their ducklings from owls, hawks and muskrats in the branches that pile up in the river, fish can hide from ducks, little fish can hide from bigger fish, insects can hide from little fish, and on and on. The river serves as a restaurant for the entire riparian food chain!
Usually we would remove only enough tree trunks and debris to open a path for canoes wide enough that it does not quickly jam up again. But, this trestle easily traps and piles up debris so we pretty well did sanitize the three channels in the middle while leaving some debris at the two ends of the trestle in which the various critters can hide and dine.
