Natural Wonders

At first glance, the design solutions are hardly noticeable: interlocking timbers with willow, silky dogwood, and arrowwood plantings support a once-failing stream bank near Bristol Drive in Annapolis, MD; a wooden board walk winds through quiet wetlands and a wildlife sanctuary behind the bustling Health Care Financing Administration Complex in Woodlawn, MD; and a newly constructed stormwater management pond teems with fresh plantings in the shadow of Carroll County Gove rnment buildings. These solutions share more than aesthetics, though, they reflect cost-effective approaches to ecological restoration, natural remediation, and environmental reuse applications.

KCI Environmental Technologies and Co nstruction (ETC), Inc., is a new name for a KCI division that has been busy designing and building systems to meet environmental challenges for three years. The new subsidiary is the brainchild of KCI environmental scientists Chuck Hegberg (Hunt Val ley, MD Office) and Joe Pfeiffer (North Carolina), who have labored with Brian Bernstein, Rich Pfingsten, and Dave Griffin to establish the company. Supported by its newest member, Steve Hurt, and KCI’s multidisciplined engineering staff, ETC alread y has projects under way in Maryland and North Carolina.

In North Carolina, KCI/ETC has conducted two-day training seminars for State agencies, earning a reputation as one of the most knowledgeable firms in stream restoration and bioengineering technologies. Pfeiffer and his team are now performing turnkey shoreline design and construction services for the State of North Carolina.


In the future, ETC expects to provide clients with natural solutions for restoring sites with limited hazardous waste problems; capping landfills; building eco-parks in metropolitan areas; constructing wetlands to tr eat wastewater; and controlling sediment and erosion control through bioengineering. ETC has proven that, with a little help, nature can complete remedial wonders of its own.


 

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