 StreamSmart crossings are reconnecting habitat all across Maine, but they're not without their challenges. Here we share three StreamSmart success stories that overcame unexpected challenges to reach success. These projects include a bridge on private forest land, a municipal water bond project, and a road crossing replaced by Maine Department of Transportation. Let's start with the project on private forest land in the town of Brooks, Maine. The road stream crossing on Chip Bessie's land allows access to portions of his property for timber harvesting, recreation, and forest fire control. I'm a forester and our business is in managing forest land. We do it with a very long-term approach. The crossing itself is situated at the outlet of Randall Pond and helps maintain the water level for camp owners on the pond. Unfortunately, the aging four-foot culvert was in terrible shape. And beaver would periodically block it and the water level in Randall Pond would rise and nearly flood some of the camps on the lake. It has been here for well over a century. So for over a century, there was essentially no movement of organisms, plants, or animals up into Randall Pond. Not only that, but the culvert itself was in terrible condition. It was rotten on the bottom and it showed signs of caving in. Concerned for the future of the pond, the stream below, local wildlife, and his access road, Mr. Bessie contacted the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS. Ben Nauman, a fisheries biologist with NRCS, conducted a site visit and saw an opportunity to restore fish passage to Randall Pond that had been blocked for over a century while also protecting access to working forest land. This aquatic system, including both Randall Pond above and Ellis Pond below, offers great habitat for native fish species. NRCS engineers developed the plans for the crossing replacement and helped with permitting. They provided some funding for the project along with the camp owners, CHIPS family, and the Nature Conservancy who provided funds to improve fish passage at the site. I knew, just from being a forester and dealing with water crossings, that doing it correctly is important. The new crossing structure is a 17-foot concrete abutment bridge with concrete decking. This is a dramatic improvement over the old 4-foot culvert for this roughly 13-foot wide stream. The new crossing structure still maintains the water levels on the pond above, but with room for fish to pass. However, the outlet to Randall Pond, after over a century of blockage, now stood 4 feet above the natural stream bed below. In order to mitigate this drop, during construction a series of five-step pools were built to create a more natural, gradual change in elevation so fish and wildlife can access Randall Pond from below. Overall, I'm just really pleased and proud to have this here on our land because it's a great project, well-designed, and one project that solved lots of problems. Next we take a look at a municipal road project in the town of Brownfield in western Maine. Frank Day, the former Public Works director, had a problem culvert on his hands to take care of before he retired. The 13-foot round culvert was on Hampshire Road crossing the Shepherd's River, and was rotting on the bottom, was beginning to undercut the roadway above, and had a drop at the outfall. Main DOT, they inspected it because it was big enough so that they inspected it every two years. I got a letter from them saying that it's a possibility if we didn't do something to upgrade it, that they would either be putting weight limits on it or closing it. So we definitely didn't want the road closed. Hampshire Road is an important road locally, and is a major route between Maine and New Hampshire. The town knew this crossing needed to be fixed, and had begun setting aside money to do the work. Just so you know, the town of Brownfield, there's no way they could have ever done this project without some help. The towns don't have that kind of money, that's all there is to it. For additional funds, an application was submitted to the Department of Environmental Protection for a water bond grant. But since the original proposal was to simply reline the existing culvert, the application was denied. Main water bond funds are intended to be used on projects that improve fish passage as well as protect roadways and infrastructure. Knowing the importance of the Shepherd's River for Eastern Brook Trout, local forester Rob Codio introduced Frank to Steve Hines of a nearby Trout Unlimited chapter. Steve rewrote the grant application with a proposal to replace the failing 13-foot round culvert with a 26-foot open bottomed arch, plenty wide enough for this 15-foot stream. Steve also brought grant funds from a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant, and Trout Unlimited provided additional funding to add to what the town had already set aside. The bottom is all open, so it's natural, just like the Brook would be without a pipe there at all. This Shepherd's River is a really well-known culture. That's a really important thing for the future, for my grandkids. Adding to the challenges at the site, there was an old dam above the crossing structure that pinched the stream, creating a large drop and deep pool on the downstream side, locking fish and wildlife from moving up and down the stream. In order to achieve meaningful fish passage at the site, at least some of the old dam would have to go. The town negotiated with the local owner of the dam, and portions of the road crossing project were reimagined in order to free up funds to cover the expense of the dam removal. Well, this project really is better in the long run. It costs more money, but it's more fish-friendly. Plus, it's more permanent. You know, if we were to repair that other pipe, it would have been a repair, exactly what it'd be. This is replacing it with a new structure and should last for 85 years. So, I mean, it's probably going to be more than that. Finally, we examined a project from the Maine Department of Transportation on a small stream in Viana, Maine. Even though the stream was only four feet wide, the original culvert was significantly undersized, which had led to the outlet becoming perched above the stream bed. The inlet regularly experienced blockages from debris flows and beaver activity, and all of this created problems for the road overhead. This culvert had been washed out by a pretty significant storm, so there was some pretty heavy safety concerns with doing the work. It came to almost being an emergency for DOT to do the work, because the road could have been unsafe. Knowing that the stream flowed into Flying Pond below, which is an important fishing site, according to Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Eric Ham at Maine DOT contacted that agency to begin consultation. You know, Flying Pond down here is a significant resource for the state, for fisheries reasons, a good brook trout resource, so that's really what drove most of the concerns at this site. As part of the review, IF&W staff elect or shocked the stream and found eastern brook trout both above and below the culvert in this small stream. This prompted Maine DOT to investigate options for providing an appropriate structure to allow for fish passage, while also addressing the timing pressure placed on the project by the severity of the safety issues. The existing culvert was much smaller than both kind of the watershed that dumps into it, and aquatic orders and passage would typically demand. It was, you know, well under probably half the size it should have been. So, you know, it's pretty typical for culverts that were installed, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. After the severe storm, the danger to the road was very real, so the project would have to move quickly. Working with IF&W, Maine DOT staff designed a crossing consisting of a six-foot round culvert with natural substrate placed in the bottom of the culvert. Substrate material was strategically selected and placed in order to prevent it from washing out, and so it could maintain itself naturally over time. The difference between a culvert with a bottom and an open bottom arch is generally driven pretty significantly by cost. You know, an open bottom arch in this specific situation, you know, would have changed the project significantly. This had to be done, as I mentioned, pretty quickly because of the state of the road. It would have added a lot of time and money to the project. It was a good cost-effective solution that we decided on and went with. Adding to the difficulty at the site and contributing to the disruption of the natural stream flow was an old roadbed running across the stream above the old inlet to the crossing. This structure disrupted the natural flow regime, contributed to the blockage of the old culvert and also impacted fish passage. But the old roadbed was on private property outside Maine DOT's easement for construction. Maine DOT staff approached the landowner about removing the old roadbed. With permission in hand, Maine DOT incorporated this stream restoration effort into their project and achieved improvements to the system that went well beyond the reach of the old roadstream crossing. I think DOT does a really good job at trying to pay attention to where those resources are and invest those resources as well as they can while still maintaining infrastructure. Through hard work, ingenuity, and partnerships, all three of these very different projects had positive outcomes for both fish and wildlife passage and infrastructure protection. By being open to new ideas and being flexible with plans, a private landowner, a municipality, and Maine DOT all were able to incorporate solutions to unforeseen problems into their plans and achieve success.