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Davey Bulletin March-April 2017

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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. 20 The Davey Bulletin | March/April 2017

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