Relocation of Brent Run Creek – Reestablishing Nearly a Mile of Aquatic Habitat/Biota
(Featuring natural recruitment of State-listed Slippershell [Alasmidonta viridis])
Stu Kogge, PWS, Sr.
GEI Consultants of Michigan, PC (GEI)
Williamsburg, Michigan
Co-Authors:
Ryan Holem, Ecotoxicologist/Aquatic Biologist
Daniel Kowalski, Wetland/Aquatic Biologist
A permit/approval was obtained from state and federal agencies for the relocation of 4,006 linear feet of Brent Run Creek, a tributary to the Flint River near Montrose, MI. The effort included placement of over 1.1 million cubic yards of material in over 10 acres of wetland and floodplain to expand an existing private landfill. A new stream channel, floodplain, and over 23 acres of wetland were created to mitigate for the impacted resources. Prior to filling and abandoning the previously dredged, straightened, and incised creek channel, aquatic biota and state-listed threatened freshwater mussel species were removed/relocated from the old channel. The new stream channel has developed into a highly productive stream resource with a diversity of features, macroinvertebrate, fish, and freshwater mussel biota.
This presentation will present and compare pre-2015 baseline ecological data of the original stream channel with aquatic biota data recorded within the new 4,008 linear feet of channel constructed more than 7 years ago (using State of Michigan in-stream protocols), inclusive of a recent mussel survey that discovered natural recruitment in the new channel by a juvenile state-listed threatened species, at least 3,000 linear feet downstream of any prior relocated Slippershell and more than 2,000 feet upstream of the original creek channel.
About Stu Kogge, PWS, Sr.
Stu Kogge is a Professional Wetland Scientist (PWS) with over 37 years of natural resource and wetland experience. He has a B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife Management and a M.S. in Limnology/ Fisheries/Aquatic Biology, both from Michigan State University. He worked for the MDNR and MDEQ as a field wetland/aquatic biologist for over 10 years and then took over MDEQ’s State-wide coastal wetland biologist position and then the State-wide inland wetlands biologist.
In 1999, Stu left the State of Michigan and started Wetland and Coastal Resources, Inc. (WCR) and formed a non-profit organization The Institute for Wetland and Coastal Trainings and Research. WCR provided ecological services relating to wetlands, lakes and streams, and aquatic resources while the non-profit organization conducted wetland delineation, mitigation and assessment and botanical plant identification classes that catered to educating and bolstering wetland skills of several state agency and private consulting firm staff. Leaving WCR to join JFNew, which then became Cardno, Stu joined GEI Consultants where he remains 8 years later. He serves as GEI’s Sr. Wetland/Aquatic Biologist, has strong ties and rapport with state and federal agencies and staff built over 37 years, holds a federal USFWS permit for handing federally listed mussels and macroinvertebrates in Michigan, and in his remaining years of service to this ecological profession is mentoring and providing technical expertise in all things wetlands and freshwater mussesl in the Midwest with GEI staff and their clients.
