MY DAVEY
MAKING WETLANDS TO BUILD
A HIGHWAY IN INDIANA
Motorists traveling through Indiana
now have 122 miles of uninterrupted
highway for a safer, faster route
between Indianapolis and South Bend,
Indiana, thanks to more than 100 acres
of wetland mitigation.
The Davey Resource Group (DRG)
Natural Resource Consulting Indiana
office worked with CHA Consulting
and the Indiana Department of
Transportation (INDOT) to mitigate
wetland impacts as the state
converted U.S. 31 from a roadway
stitched together with stoplights and
intersections into an uninterrupted
highway, flowing smoothly across
northwest Indiana.
Converting U.S. 31 into an uninter-
rupted highway required building new
freeway on-ramps and interchanges,
some of which impacted various
wetland sites. DRG worked in four
different locations to offset those
impacts. DRG created new wetlands
or expanded and improved existing
wetlands.
Jacob Bannister, project manager,
said DRG crews have worked on the
U.S. 31 project since 2010 controlling
invasive species, installing new
wetland plants, planting trees,
seeding, stabilizing streambanks and
managing erosion control at the four
project sites.
"They're all in the same watershed,
but they are essentially four separate
projects," Bannister said. "It's basically
all the same tasks, but they're slightly
different sites."
LAPORTE COUNTY IS
LARGEST LOCATION
In Laporte County, DRG crews worked
on the largest of the four sites. The 92-
acre site draws water from the nearby
Kankakee River to feed a wetland that
is just one element of the natural area.
"The wetland supports improved water
quality through filtration," Bannister
said. "By channeling part of the river
into the wetland, it eventually makes
its way into the ground, recharges the
ground water and makes its way back
to the river. The soils and vegetation
pull contaminants out of the water.
It provides a great filter for the river."
The Laporte County site also features
a forest area, prairie buffer areas, a
forested wetland component and a
deep-water emergent wetland. "It's a
unique place to work," Bannister said.
CONTROLLING
INVASIVE SPECIES
Weeding out invasive species proved
the biggest task at each project site.
Todd Gillian, site manager, said crews
treated primarily for Phragmites and
DRG created this emergent wetland
basin in LaPorte County, Indiana, to
support a highway construction project.
This panoramic view shows Davey Resource Group employees
and equipment working at a wetlands mitigation site in
Indiana as part of the U.S. 31 highway project.
DRG employees plant trees at a
wetland in LaPorte County, Indiana.
Multiple employees from different DRG offices
contributed to the project, including from left: Josh
Lindemann, Ryan Wilkinson, James Rocke, Ridley
Collins, Colin Nemec, Jacob Bannister, Daniel Tapia,
Vicente Guzman, Trevor Vidic, and Zachary Root.
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The Davey Bulletin | March/April 2017
