Description:
Intermountain Aquatics worked with Friends of the Teton River and identified reference, recovery and restoration sites on the Teton River through a comprehensive habitat assessment program. Five individual sites were identified in a 10-mile section of river as severely eroding. Each site was previously inventoried by the NRCS as eroding and fences were installed in the late 1980s. By 2003, the sites still had not recovered and were characterized by shear, exposed banks ranging from 3-5 feet high. In the fall of 2003 each site was re-sloped and stabilized with erosion control fabric and willows. Just after peak flow in the summer of 2004 wetland sod was installed in two rows along the toe of the banks. By late summer 2004, all five sites were fully stabilized with a rooted wetland sedge community and live willows. Friends of the Teton River has established cross-sections throughout the project sites to monitor changes in stream geomorphology, plant composition and bank stability.