WETLANDS RESTORATION

Today, with a greater understanding of the value of  wetlands, comes more effort to not only preserve them, but also to restore them.

As clean up and capping reached its end, the final step of the remediation process was to restore native habitat to the basin of Stryker Bay in the St. Louis river.

Meanwhile, a few miles up the river, erosion had filled in what once had been a valuable fish habitat near an area called Tallas Island over the years. Various environmental agencies sensed an opportunity, and the Stryker Bay Superfund Site construction managers turned to Marine Tech for a solution.

The challenge was to hydraulically dredge and remove the sediments that had filled in the basin behind Tallas Island. Then, pump it two and a half miles down the river to the Stryker Bay remediation site and place this material in a half-foot lift.

Drawing on experience, dedicated personnel and specialized hydraulic software, Marine Tech dredged a channel to separate Tallas Island from the mainland to create fish habitat.

To transport the material – with a well-established base of vegetation and micro-organisms – we hydraulically pumped the materials through two stations, down the St. Louis River to Stryker Bay. We covered 40 acres with a six-inch layer of environmental media … or, in simple terms… top soil.

We like to think of it as hydraulically transporting instant environment.