LAUREL – A new DNREC YouTube Channel video explores a stream restoration project in Sussex County by following it from initial undertaking at a Laurel resident’s request through DNREC’s engineering design for the project to its recent completion by DNREC’s Division of Watershed Stewardship.

What originated as a response to a drainage problem caused in part by a 90-degree bend in a ditch wending through a residential community evolved over time into a stream restoration that greatly reduced flooding in the area. Restoration work centered on rerouting overflow from heavy rainfall to nearby Records Pond.

Aerial footage and graphics in the new video show how the restoration was engineered by DNREC and carried out by a partnership with the Sussex Conservation District. The project used native plants to create a wetlands buffer and also deployed rip-rap to stymie erosion at the base of trees along the stream. “The idea was to return the ditch to a channel with the overflow and stabilize it with native plants so it wouldn’t wash out any more during high-rain events,” Travis Schirmer, engineering/planning/survey technician, publicly-funded water management projects, Division of Watershed Stewardship, says of the stream restoration.

The video can be found on the DNREC YouTube Channel. For drainage concerns or problems, please call the DNREC Drainage Hotline at 302-855-1955 or email DNREC_Drainage@delaware.gov.

Media Contact: Michael Globetti, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 48, No. 18

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