Benefits of the Little Coal River compensatory mitigation project

The Little Coal River in southern West Virginia has incurred many insults in the past century from timbering, pre-law mining, natural gas extraction, road construction, and generally poor land-use practices.  The river carries a burdensome sediment load that is causing problems with bank stability as well as reducing habitat for benthic and fish communities. Through a compensatory mitigation project a coal company was able to address some of the issues on a three and a half mile reach of the Little Coal River, paving the way for further work on additional reaches. Traditionally compensatory mitigation projects required in-kind projects close to the impacts. Through an innovative trial project West Virginia regulators were able to demonstrate that Natural Stream Design structures would work on this particular large river system and were able to convince the applicant as well as the US Army Corps of Engineers that the project would provide habitat improvements. The project was completed in 2008 and has been monitored by applicant, the WVDEP, West Virginia University and Marshall University.  The presentation details the sediment issues in the river, construction, and monitoring results.