Conservation solutions that protect and strengthen local economies are more valuable than ever.
Frequent Trout Unlimited partner and contractor Anabranch Solutions has blended their scientific expertise with cost effective restoration methods that deliver both ecologic benefits and economic value.
The Logan, Utah-based company is among the best in their field and a leader in the world of low-tech process-based restoration (LTPBR) methods. Along with Utah State University, the founders of the company even authored their own LTPBR field guide. Their river and stream restoration engineering focuses on natural processes rather than bull-dozer-style engineered fixes.
Often working in remote and spectacular watersheds, the company has been able to create full-time and seasonal jobs throughout the West while also improving meadow and stream systems.
“Process-based restoration is really jamming,” said Matt Berry, Anabranch’s California program anager & meadow ecologist.
“It’s an exciting time right now because more and more people are getting trained on it. And it just makes sense in so many cases.”
Benefiting from working with experts
Trout Unlimited has collaborated with Anabranch on numerous occasions, including restoration work on California’s Kern River watershed. Using LTPBR methods in many U.S. Forest Service meadow and stream sites throughout the Golden Trout Wilderness, the partnership has helped revive headwater habitat for the iconic state fish.
“In California, Anabranch has been a valued partner in bringing process-based restoration techniques to our headwater meadow restoration,” said Jessica Strickland, TU’s Inland Trout program director. “In the Golden Trout Project on the Kern, they’ve been integral throughout the entire project life cycle, serving a role in design, implementation and post-construction project effectiveness monitoring.”
Crews from both organizations have constructed hundreds of beaver dam analogs and added woody debris to the small Sierra creeks. This helps slow the water down during periods of runoff, allowing it to spill over its banks and soak into the surrounding meadow. Storing the water in the meadow and floodplain creates a wetter, more resilient stream system. It also helps protect these ecosystems against damaging wildfires.
“If all this stuff is wet, it’s harder to burn,” said Dr. Nick Bouwes, one of Anabranch’s founders and aquatic ecologist, in TU’s Golden Trout Project film.
Bringing LTPBR to the masses
Anabranch was founded in 2005 by Bouwes, geomorphologist Joe Wheaton and fish biologist Stephen Bennett. Their early work centered around salmon recovery in the Columbia River Basin. The company took burgeoning methods of low-tech process-based restoration and cemented them as integral to river and stream restoration and monitoring.
Now, the company’s founders continue to train others on LTPBR. Anabranch Founder and geomorphologist Joe Wheaton is a professor at Utah State University, teaching many of the techniques to undergraduate and graduate students.
“He wants to get the most amount of work done everywhere, so he’s training anyone and everyone,” said Berry.
Today, the company is looking forward to growing their work throughout the West, adding dozens of seasonal jobs on crews that will get out and put the theories of LTPBR into practice.
“When expert staff from different agencies and organizations get together in the field and get to dive into a project, it’s really fun,” Berry said. He’s been especially proud of the work in the Golden Trout Wilderness, which is now primarily in the monitoring and maintenance stage.
“It’s been fun to collaborate on so many things,” said Berry. “Everyone has their talents. That’s just been a really great team to work with. And we all want to see the streams get better.”