Rich Fork Wetland and Stream Restoration Full Delivery Project

Client: North Carolina Department of Transportation

Location: Thomasville, North Carolina

Services: Environmental planning and design

KCI located, evaluated, designed and constructed a proposal to restore 25-acres of wetland and 3,000 linear feet of stream on the Rich Fork Mitigation Site. Adjacent to Rich Fork (a tributary to Abbotts Creek), the site drains a watershed of 16,723 acres (26.1 sq. mi.). The site was under agricultural use and had been substantially altered from its original community makeup. A network of ditches that drain ground and surface water from the agricultural fields and adjacent uplands has altered the hydrology of the site.

KCI’s developed and implemented a mitigation plan that targeted the development of the selected communities and their respective functions. These objectives will be achieved through removal of lateral drains, site grading to increase diversity of habitats on the floodplain, and revegetation of the site with plant species characteristic of the proposed communities. Adjacent, undisturbed floodplain areas at the same elevation support piedmont / mountain bottomland hardwood communities.

The project was constructed in 2003 by KCI. Approximately 23 acres of wetland and 3,380 linear feet of stream channel was constructed. Monitoring will begin in 2003 and be complete by 2008.

Initial assessments of the site find the habitat rapidly re-establishing itself with observed usage of the site by Marbled Salamanders, Wild Turkey, Whitetail Deer, 4 species of frogs, Woodcock, ducks and geese. Bass, Bluegill, Killifish, Black Crappie and catfish have re-populated the stream.




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