Just beneath the surface of the river restoration industry is an undercurrent of controversy strong enough to create two distinctly-opposed camps. Dubbed the “Rosgen Wars ” during the mid-1990s, this 20-year battle of ideas was named for its protagonist, Colorado hydrologist Dave Rosgen, and pits Rosgen and his legion of followers against some of the [...]

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Many expensive stream projects fail because they are not guided by science, experts say.  At Trout Headwaters, Inc. we have a long tradition of promoting the use of baseline assessments in stream, river and wetland restoration.  We even developed a patented system, RiverWorks Rapid Assessment System® (RRAS), to help standardize the assessment process. The first [...]

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At Trout Headwaters we put a lot of emphasis on stream and wetland assessment.  Our unwavering belief in scientifically-sound assessments of water resources led us to develop a patented system just for assessments called RiverWorks Rapid Assessment System®. Because of the number of stream restoration failures we’ve seen in the last 16 years, we have [...]

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Kudos are deserved for the North Carolina legislature for recently passing legislation (which Governor Perdue signed) addressing an issue that has plagued the stream and wetland restoration efforts for years: insufficient project assessment, design and monitoring.  Fifteen years ago, Trout Headwaters, Inc (THI) entered the stream restoration industry, and unfortunately, a significant amount of our [...]

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According to a recent report by the Raleigh News & Observer, more than 30 stream restoration projects have failed during or after construction in the state of North Carolina, “a few of them multiple times, turning what was supposed to be a cleanup into an environmental hazard.” The state is reportedly spending millions repairing these [...]

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