USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--Removing cement-lined channels in the Kinnickinnic River, Wisconsin

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Faith: We're here on the Kinnickinnic

River, the lower part down by the

harbor. Kinnickinnic River is one of the

three main rivers in the Milwaukee area

and over 80 percent of it is cement-

lined or storm sewers. And there's now a

large project to update the flood

control and also rehabilitate the

stream. Dave, could you tell me a little

bit about the history of the

Kinnickinnic River?

Dave: I'll be glad to. The river's –

this river has a watershed of about 25

square miles, 90 percent of it's

urbanized. It's experienced flooding in

the 60's, 70's and 80's. There was some

concrete lining put in in the 60's to

alleviate that flooding because at that

time flood management was basically a

conveyance solution where they would

pass the water down to the lake as fast

as possible. In the 80's there was

another additional flooding, at that

time SEWRPC came in and re-did a design

which removed some of the bridges. In

fact, there was an auto bridge behind us

that it was replaced with a pedestrian

bridge and that also helped to alleviate

some of the flooding that we had.

In recent years, SEWRPC has come back

and looked at the modeling that we have

on this river and we now have an

additional 350 homes at flood risk. The

conveyance channel behind us can no

longer handle the flows for the one

percent probability flood or the 100

year flood as some people like to call

it, and the sewage district is coming in

to do a flood management project, and in

addition to that we're going to do some

stream rehabilitation. And you'll notice

I use the term rehabilitation I don't

use the term restoration because it's my

belief, particularly in these urban

settings that we can't do a complete

restoration project, but we can give the

stream back some of its function, which

is more in line with a rehabilitation project.

Faith: Pat, as being the over site

engineer for the projects, what's been

some of the limitations in combining

engineering and stream rehabilitation?

Pat: Well, a lot of it has to do with

the constraints that we have on the

site. So you look up and down this

channel right here and you can see that

the houses are right up against the

channel, but you also have the

infrastructure, the sewer infrastructure

that's also right up against the

channel. So if you wanna expand out you

try and either work around that or you

have to move that infrastructure, which

can become very costly.

Faith: I think with having a cement-

lined channel one of the limitations

have been fish passage and then also

just in terms of structures that they

have to jump over, but then also the

width of the channel that is too shallow

for fish to pass through. So is there

something in the designs that are – can

keep the flood control but still add the

little habitat to help the fish do that?

Pat: Right, in the upcoming designs the

rehabilitated channel designs that we

have will have a low-flow channel

section within there and it'll have a

thalweg within that so even during low

flows the fish should have enough

coverage there to be able to make it

upstream. And also install a pool and

riffle sections throughout that rehabbed

section so that the fish can have a

break in these little pool sections as well.

Dave: If I could just add to that, the

channel currently has a top width of

about 50 to 60 feet, we're gonna expand

that top width to about 200 feet with

the low flow channel being between six

and ten feet. To do that we, of course,

have to acquire a lot of the properties

on either side of the river, that, in

this case, is gonna be 80 to 100 homes

will have to be acquired, knocked down

and then we will expand that channel.

This required a lot of public input,

this is not something easily done in

most municipalities it's a loss of tax

base, relocation of citizens that have

lived here for a long time. So we had a

series of meetings, about two years of

public meetings to get to the point

where we are now where we're just

completing the preliminary engineering.

We'll go to design in about a year and a

half, and then we should begin

construction in two to three years.

Faith: So what are – I was down a couple

of weeks ago, down below the cement

lining ends and there were some fish

waiting to come up that couldn't make it

up over into the cement lined portion.

Dave: That's correct.

Faith: What fish would use this once the cement is taken out?

Dave: When the concrete's removed this

river does connect in with Miwaukee

Harbor and it's connected to Lake

Michigan. We have a large transplanted

Salmonidae population and we also have

some native trout that will use this

stream to come up the river.

Unfortunately, they will not be able to

spawn here because there will be no

spawning habitat for them, but they will

come up the river as they would during

their migrations to spawn. But, again,

they won't be able to spawn. We also

hope that this will become a forage base

for other species such as walleye,

small-mouth bass, northern pike. In

fact, the target species for this river,

I believe, is the northern pike and if

we can get that fish to move freely up

and down the river that would be

something that would make other fish

passage much – very possible.

But, again, they will not use this for

all their life stages, but they will

forage in this area for food and other things.

Faith: I think I saw in the design plans

there was also more room for humans to

use the area around the cannel? Is there

a plan for more paths?

Dave: Correct. We're standing on a path

now that runs along the top bank of the

channel, when we are completed there

will be a path, a maintenance path on

the bottom that will also be available

to pedestrians, bikes, and individuals.

But it will also be used for

maintaining, whatever we put in will

have to be maintained. We'll have a

bioengineered channel, like Pat said,

with a low-flow channel. That'll have to

be maintained, debris that gets into the

channel will have to be removed because

we'll still be connected to that 25-mile

urban watershed, and various materials

do tend to wash into this channel and have to be removed.

Faith: So what's the general feeling

about the work that's planned here with

the residents and the general public?

Dave: I think that's a real important

point to bring up, if you look at the

channel the way it is now, a lot of

these people view this almost like an

open sewer, they don't really see it as

a resource. They see it as a threat from

flooding and they just see it as an open

sewer. What we're trying to do through

the stream rehabilitation projects that

we do is make people think of this as a

resource, to actually add value to their

neighborhood. In addition to the

planning and the preliminary engineering

that were done, we've done a

neighborhood plan that's going to help

revitalize this neighborhood. And using

the channel project as a catalytic

project to redevelop the neighborhood,

get new housing, perhaps, in here, get

new development to come into this area

once we've improved the aesthetics of the area.

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