Project Highlight: West Fork of Second Creek Pre-Storation

Instead of restoration, here we're looking at "pre-storation". This involves modifying a natural waterway like this first order stream to prepare it for a dramatic increase in runoff from pending urbanization in the watershed upstream. There will be no easier or less expensive time to create healthy and resilient open channel infrastructure than BEFORE the upstream watershed urbanizes. It would be nice to leave this stream alone and hope it holds up to the increase in flows we know are coming, but history has shown us this is unrealistic, and that stream restoration 10 or 20 years down the road could be orders of magnitude more expensive when the erosion is significant and when there are more barriers to contend with like roads, bridges, and utilities.