Stream and wetland crossings

David Demmer from the Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources joins co-hosts Anna and Dave to talk about how to avoid negative impacts at stream and wetland crossings.

What is Minnesota's Forest Management Guidelines: A Refresher?

This podcast is intended as a quick refresher for loggers and foresters on the basics of the Minnesota forest management guidelines prior to attending in-person field training. This project is a collaboration between University of Minnesota Extension, the Minnesota Forest Resources Council, Minnesota Logger Education Program, and UMN Sustainable Forests Education Cooperative. The Minnesota Forest Management Guidelines are a product of the Minnesota Forest Resources Council. Join co-hosts Anna Stockstad (University of Minnesota Extension) and Dave Nolle (Minnesota Logger Education Program) and various guests to discuss the key points of the MN Forest Management Guidelines.To learn more about each of the organizations involved in this project, please check out the following resources:
https://mn.gov/frc/, https://mlep.org/, https://extension.umn.edu/natural-resources#forestry, https://sfec.cfans.umn.edu/

Anna B Stockstad: Hi, everyone! I'm Anna Stockstad with the University of Minnesota Extension.

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: and I'm. Dave noly with the Minnesota longer education program.

Anna B Stockstad: We're back today with another podcast episode. And today we're going to be discussing the stream and wetland, crossing guidelines

and joining us today, as our guest is David Demer from the Minnesota Board of Soil a water resources. So thank you so much for joining us today. David.

ddemmer: Yeah, Thank you for having me.

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: So, David, i'm gonna jump in here with the first question, and I'm I'm. Still learning here, and understanding that the guidelines tell us that we have to, that we need to limit stream wetland crossings, and you just give us a little bit of an overview. Why, that's important.

ddemmer: Sure wetlands play, and a lot of functions in watershed health, and among them are things like beyond wild wildlife habitat. But stormwater attenuation, flood water is attenuation. There's

ddemmer: chemical processes happening with soils that have been saturated for prolonged periods.

ddemmer: There's lots of functions, especially considering different places along the watershed where a wetlands function is really helping the watershed itself. Function.

ddemmer: So with those functions in mind. Laws have been set up in Minnesota for both wetlands and public waters.

ddemmer: water courses to protect wetlands where they can, and then, recognizing the fact that

ddemmer: human activities do interact with wetlands and watersheds. Their regulations set up some kind of guidelines to follow to allow those uses, but still try to maintain the Wetlands natural functions as much as possible.

Anna B Stockstad: I think that's a really good overview. And

Anna B Stockstad: yeah wetlands are, you know, classified as sensitive features. That's all about minimizing our impact at crossings of these wetlands as much as we can.

Anna B Stockstad: and I know a common problem is that occurs at these crossings is running

Anna B Stockstad: so could you maybe tell us a little bit more about what type of issues running causes, and how operators can best avoid running at these wetland and stream crossings

ddemmer: right? I mean just due to the nature that wetlands are these areas that have either groundwater to the surface or shallow ground, water or surface water itself. Wetlands are saturated soil conditions, and those saturated soil conditions contribute a lot to those overall functions that I just spoke to.

ddemmer: So when there's activity in a wetland area that

ddemmer: comp compacts and ruts Wetland and I do use those both, you know, at the the same, because

ddemmer: it's not just the running, but it's also the compaction that ultimately can alter a landscape, and in a way that

ddemmer: you know, running for

ddemmer: it encourages segmentation, right? It releases sediment into the system that otherwise probably wouldn't have been.

ddemmer: but also to in extreme cases, and especially in areas that are being intensely log or just intense activity. The cumulative effect of running, going back and forth over a single basin can actually alter the surfaceial hydrology. So it actually can change how that wetland is

ddemmer: allowing the water to flow through it, and especially in certain wetlands, such as floodplain wetlands, or even sloped forest wetlands

ddemmer: that can ultimately have a cumulative effect on how the wetland functions and degrade the watershed, whether it's the water quality or its ability to function at some of its core hydrologic functions.

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: So it sounds like a a lot of factors at play that the operator may need to be planning in advance, recognizing what's, what's coming, what what the operator is going to encounter at that crossing, or maybe even needing to adapt that crossing after they've made a crossing or 2, and realizing that

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: that they're crossing, that they're using is perhaps than the

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: not the most important.

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: So there's a lot of different crossing structures that they can use. The guidelines has a whole laundry list of them. Let's say they need to cross the stream

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: which ones

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: which one's gonna come to the surface, if you will, of popular or best suited for variety of encounters.

ddemmer: Yeah. Great question. I I think

ddemmer: there's a couple of components to it. There's one, this the crossing of the stream itself, right? And a lot of the big factors in my mind. At least, I think the guidelines kind of follow that it has a lot to do with one. How large that channel is, how deep those banks are, and how permit of a flow it has going through it.

ddemmer: There's approaches for each of those considerations right going from a temporary bridge to a temporary covert to a temporary ford, the latter right temperate forward being those circumstances that are most appropriate for those ephemeral drainages that I don't have deep stream banks that

ddemmer: can be pretty safely cross, especially in the dry season.

ddemmer: That kind of just works up, and in terms of which is the best approach based off the size of the stream, the depth of the the the stream bank. And so you kind of walk your way up into whether or not a temporary callvert is appropriate, or a temporary bridge depending for those large channels. The key here for any stream crossing is that there are potentially regulatory implications for that.

ddemmer: For example, if it's public waters, the Dnr. Administers that program and has a lot of guidance out there. For whether or not that activity would require public work. Water it's work, Permit

don't! Forget about the core. Either the Federal side of things. If that waterway is under the to under. Consider waters of the Us. Under the Section 4 4 of the Clean Water Act. The core might be involved with that

ddemmer: in terms of approaching the actual stream. There's oftentimes also Wetlands involved right, especially at the fringes, and in my experience some of the most successful crossings that have the had the least impact usually involves some sort of timber man madding to get there; the other.

ddemmer: the other

ddemmer: pretty common scenario is approaching these systems. Approaching these crossings during frozen soil conditions, too.

Anna B Stockstad: Yeah, and I was just gonna say so When you say, you know, operating on frozen soil conditions, I know that over 50% of timber harvesting in the State occurs during the winter, and so could you, maybe just give a little bit more detail about why we should be

ddemmer: like. Why, in certain cases we should be operating in the winter instead of during the summer.

The main benefit is is that when you have frozen ground in an area that is either permanently or semi permanently saturated. Being frozen will allow that equipment to travel over

ddemmer: without changing the soil structure, especially if you're talking about organics. Organics will compact very easily that kind of goes against the the it's a billy to be able to want to accumulate, because that's essentially what organics are attending to want to do naturally is just simply accumulate. So when they compact that you kind of reverse course in that.

ddemmer: And of course it takes away the opportunity for writing, or a significant writing or deep reading if you're approaching it under so frozen soil conditions.

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: Well, David, certainly a lot to to digest a lot to

Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: to understand here, and a good good setup for our upcoming Fmg trainings. Thanks for giving us a great summary of how to avoid negative impacts during stream and wetland crossings, and it's a segue for us into our next episode, where we'll be talking about repairing management zones R. And Zs and filter strips.

ddemmer: Thanks for having me.

Anna B Stockstad: Yeah, thanks so much, David, and share our listeners. Yeah, stay tuned for the next episode. Thanks so much.