USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--Urban stream restoration in a freeway interchange, County G I-94 Interchange, Wisconsin

Urban stream restoration in a freeway interchange, County G I-94 Interchange, Wisconsin

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[Music playing]

Faith:

So Larry, you were the Site Engineer for

this particular project. What are some

of the physical constraints and some of

the project details that went into doing

the design here?

Larry: As a roadway designer, my first

challenge was to really recognize that

this was an opportunity to enhance an

existing stream. It's more than just a

roadside channel or ditch and working

with the other agencies, we had the

opportunity to really improve the

characteristics of the stream and bring

it back to a more natural setting.

So we, again, worked with the roadway

alignment and also modeled the alignment

of the stream and all the curves,

designed by SERPC (The Southeastern

Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission)

and also a flood-plain area that we had

to model and see how that balanced with

the roadway surface and create a flood-

plain area to provide buffers on each

side of the stream to help us determine

how much easement we would need for the

area. So that was an initial challenge.

Faith: So it started out as a –

basically, a ditch that went through

this section?

Larry: Right.

Faith: And now you've created a more

natural stream and added some flood

plain as well?

Larry: Right, exactly. Another important

phase next was how do we staged the

construction of the stream to match with

the construction of the roadway. This

section here we had an early contract to

grade the stream and get – all the

planting was done ahead of time so it

had a chance to vegetate for a year in

advance of any road construction.

Faith: I imagine that was really important.

Larry: Right, definitely. So we were

staging the phases of the stream similar

to how you would phase a roadway project

where you're really concerned about

getting the new ground stream to

vegetate, keeping water in the old

stream, but balancing it all with

construction equipment for the roadway.

[Music playing]

[End of Audio]

Details

Title: Urban stream restoration in a freeway interchange, County G I-94 Interchange, Wisconsin

Description:

Faith Fitzpatrick (U.S. Geological Survey) and Larry Pfeil (Wisconsin Department of Transportation) discuss the overall design to construct a natural looking stream from a ditch within the constraints of roadway alignment, buffers, easements, and culverts.

Location: Milwaukee, WI, USA

Date Taken: 11/17/2010

Length: 2:17

Video Producer: Douglas A. Harned , National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA), USGS, North Carolina Water Science Center, Raleigh, NC

Note: This video has been released into the public domain by the U.S. Geological Survey for use in its entirety. Some videos may contain pieces of copyrighted material. If you wish to use a portion of the video for any purpose, other than for resharing/reposting the video in its entirety, please contact the Video Producer/Videographer listed with this video. Please refer to the USGS Copyright section for how to credit this video.

Additional Video Credits:

Faith Fitzpatrick: Scriptwriter, Narrator, Scientist Consultant

Gerard McMahon: Producer

Douglas Harned: Producer, Video, Editor

Alan Cressler: Video

Luke McMahon: Video

Larry Pfeil (Wisconsin Department of Transportation)

File Details: