Representatives from the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance (BRC) and an environmental scientist shared the results of a comprehensive assessment plan for the West Branch of the Red Clay Creek Watershed at the Kennett Library on Dec. 13, one that paves the way for extensive, ten-year restoration of the watershed beginning in 2024.

The plan – which began a year ago -- was introduced by BRC Executive Director and CEO James Jordan; BRC Watershed Conservation Director Brian Winslow; and Dr. Aaron Clauser of Clauser Environmental, LLC.

The plan spells out the non-profit organization’s large-scale reductions in sediment, nitrogen and phosphorous pollution throughout the western portion of the watershed, which extends from Route 1 on the north to the Marshall Bridge area to the south, and includes tributaries in New Garden, East Marlborough and Kennett townships, and the Kennett Borough. 

Winslow said the planned clean-up of the watershed is the latest component of the BRC’s Red Streams Blue program, first launched in 2007, that addresses the creeks throughout the Red Clay and Brandywine Creek watersheds and the need to make significant environmental improvements there. The agency’s plans are in alliance with the Clean Water Act, that requires all states to assess streams for their overall quality, the diversity of their wildlife, and the levels of sediment and pollution. The BRC is also following the lead of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, whose mapping of streams and waterways throughout the state indicates the clear delineation between healthy streams (marked in blue) and impaired streams (marked in red.)

Several of Alliance’s restoration projects already completed

Referring to photographs of the restoration work the organization does to improve streams and streambanks, Winslow said the BRC has completed eight watershed plans and 30 restoration projects over the past 12 years that have restored more than seven miles of streams and included the planting of more than 4,800 trees. Most recently, the BRC’s work to restore the Upper East Branch of the Red Clay Watershed led to the completion of five projects that targeted 1.7 miles of impaired streams and streambanks, in partnership with the Brandywine Conservancy, the Stroud Water Research Center, Kennett Trails Alliance, Kennett Square Borough, Kennett and East Marlborough townships, the Kennett Area Park Authority, the Kennett Golf and Country Club and several landowners. 

Winslow said that the BRC is receiving grant funding from federal, state and regional agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation and a matching grant from the E. Kneale Dockstader Foundation for the restoration of the West Branch of the Red Clay Watershed. 

In his presentation, Clauser gave an overview of the project to restore the watershed’s water quality, improve natural habitat and reduce flooding that began with an assessment of the watershed. Comparing aerial overviews of the area over the last several decades, Clauser showed how residential and industrial development and environmental influences have impacted the health of the watershed.

“Back then, things were agrarian,” he said. “There were some forested areas, and basically, everything that could be farmed was farmed, and it stayed that way through the 1940s and 1950s, until development started in the 1950s.

“This legacy of farming before conservation practices were implemented contributed to deposition of sediments in the stream valleys.  After 1970, there was lots of lots of development that added impervious surfaces with little stormwater detention resulting in stream bank erosion.”  

Several high priority projects planned

Walking with Winslow along the 16-mile length of the watershed last fall, Clauser said that they divided the watershed into segments, and created more than 100 GPS points along the streambanks that identified and prioritized the various improvements that can be done at each of the marked stations.

“[Each point] may be as simple as, ‘Here’s a bunch of litter that requires a clean-up,’ and it may be a place where there is stormwater that is causing an erosion gulley,” Clauser said. “These are places where doing that project will make a dramatic difference over time when you start linking all of the projects together.”

Clauser said that among the highest priority projects for the watershed will be to remove invasive plant species from various areas and planting native trees and shrubs that will improve the health of stream buffers and floodplains. Another high priority project will be to install regenerative stream channels that will address stream bank erosion and help protect eroding stream banks. 

Additional priorities will include reducing stormwater run-off to streams and may include a partnership with a Kennett Square mushroom farm to install stormwater basins on the property that will lessen potential flooding. 

To complement the work of Clauser and the BRC, Winslow reached out to major stakeholders in the preservation of the watershed, asking them to provide key recommendations to the plan. Their responses prioritized land preservation and stewardship of protected lands; improving stormwater infrastructure and non-functioning water basins; installing and repairing buffers and lawn-to-meadow conversions in priority areas; and informing landowners about planned projects.

The BRC’s restoration of the Lower West Branch of the Red Clay is scheduled to begin in 2024, with a stream restoration project planned for a section of Bucktoe Creek in New Garden Township. BRC also has a grant to plant seven acres of new forested riparian buffers in the watershed. 

Completing the implementation of a typical stream restoration project takes as many as three to five years and involves several steps that includes a multi-tiered punch list requiring site identification, fundraising, design and permits, project bidding and construction, which is followed by annual inspection and maintenance.  Clauser said that the impact of these restoration projects is intended to be apparent long after the heavy lifting has been completed.

“We’re reducing stream bank erosion, planting trees and shrubs and it takes years before they are established, so while there might be some water quality benefit in the short-term, the real benefit is five, ten, fifteen and thirty years down the road,” he said. 

To learn more about the Lower West Branch Red Clay Watershed Restoration Plan, or to become a volunteer for the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance, visit www.brandywineredclay.org.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].