'It's like open-heart surgery;' Henrico funding stream-restoration projects to revive native habitats

Henrico County will begin restoring the Hidden Creek Park stream in Eastern Henrico in July, after the county’s board approved an $838,000 contract last month. 

The restoration will recreate the natural pattern of the creek to prevent erosion as part of the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System permit. The MS4 is a Virginia Department of Environmental Quality program designed to help restore the Chesapeake Bay. 

Right now, water is flowing through streams like a fire hose, capital projects manager John Newton said. When water rushes out of the pipe, it picks up thousands of pounds of sediment. 

Healthy streams are shallow, and the water banks out when it rains, he said. But the erosion turned the stream into a gully – a straight, deep and wide channel. 

Newton explained that the sediment carries phosphorus and nitrogen, which lead to algal blooms. The algal blooms suck out oxygen in the bay when they die, threatening aquatic life. 

The erosion is typical in urban streams. 

“Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, we didn’t really have stormwater regulations,” he said. “Out of sight and out of mind.” 

The construction will return the stream back to its natural state. Newton calls the restoration “earthwork.” It consists of regrading the floodplain and reconstructing the stream with s-curves to recreate a natural flow of water. 

The regrading will create a plunge pool where the water flows out of the pipe to reduce the energy that the water carries, Newton said. Then, the water will slowly drop down through riffles in the stream, almost like stairs. 

“What we’re going to do is recreate a profile where it’s a very vegetated and shallow bank,” Newton said. “There’ll be places where the midges catch on to the rocks and live with the critters, like frogs.”

The project also will introduce armor channels, like log and rock structures, in the bottom of the creek to prevent future erosion, he said. 

But it’s not a quick fix. The project will take about 10 months to complete, and it involves clearing out the vegetation that currently surrounds the creek, Newton said. 

“It’s like open-heart surgery, you have to break a rib first,” he said. 

Once the creek is restored, the team will replace the area with native species, similar to the type of restoration officials completed just outside of the Henrico County Training Center on Parham Road, Newton said. Fifteen years ago, the vegetation was torn out. Now, it looks like a jungle, and the native plants and critters are thriving. 

The restoration had to be done to restore the habitat for vegetation and critters that erosion has destroyed. And for Newton, he just wants nature to heal. 

“The system was so unhealthy that it was never going to fix itself,” he said.

The MS4 projects to restore the Chesapeake Bay have to be completed by 2028. The county is currently working on a project outside of Wilder Middle School, and a few others are moving through the system and will go to bid this year.