Road building practices in watersheds have caused major damage. While sometimes roads were simply built straight through tributary streams, culverts or bridges were also used in order to pass over streams. However, culverts can do more harm than good if not built and maintained properly. 

A stream table is a shallow tank on an angle with water running through different sized grains of sand which we can set up various demonstrations in to show these fluvial processes at work.

Culverts can block passage to fish if they are too small, hung or deteriorating.  A too small culvert will increase water speed as the stream is forced through a narrow passage. A hung culvert forces fish to make a large jump into a narrow opening. Culverts can change natural stream sediment transport regimes. The journey a salmon takes back upstream to spawn is a perilous one, and a blockage to passage can result in salmon dying before they can spawn.

In order to restore the function of these watersheds and restore fish habitat, we replace these improperly designed ones with ones that are openbottomed or embedded with natural substrate, allow for the passage of woody debris, maintain flow regimes and can handle a river at peak flows.

Come check out and play with the stream table yourself at our shop & office space in Ucluelet, BC!

Learn more about what we do at ReddFish.org
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Redd Fish humbly acknowledges the ancestral territories of the Nuučaanuł Nations, who have owned and managed their territories since time immemorial. We gratefully operate in partnership with the Hiškʷiiʔatḥ Nation, ʕaaḥuusʔatḥ Nation, ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ Nation, tukʷaaʔatḥ Nation Government, and the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Government.