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Adam Broadhead
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Trevor Bond
The River Management Blog 
your review of MSc programs has missed one of the best in the country…the MSc in River Basin dynamics and management at Leeds…
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/study/masters/courses/msc-in-river-basin-dynamics-management-with-gis/
please add it to your appraisal!
thanks,
Jonathan
Jonathan, thanks for the heads up, I’m really not sure how I missed that one. Now amended.
Simon – I am a River Management Engineer for the State of Vermont in the USA. I saw a lot of tree debris jams while providing flood response to Vermonters after Tropical Storm Irene hit on Aug 28, 2011. I read your post with great interest and hope you could contact me via email at: todd.menees@state.vt.us so we could have a dialogue on what sediment debris contributes to tree debris jams and flooding. Thanks – Todd
My name is Scott Simon and I live in Sarasota, Florida, in the US. My wife and I bought a home on Phillippi Creek; at one time a fairly good sized creek approximately seven miles long that empties into a bay close to the Gulf of Mexico. Because of my concern for the upkeep of the creek I was “elected” the new president of the newly formed creek commission. Our biggest concern is a “salinity weir” 50 meters from my house that impedes the creeks flow. The local government and citizens want it removed, but the question is, what is the easiest way to do it? Our local government doesn’t seem to have any ideas. And in the long run, will its removal improve the sediment flow? Thanks for any assistance.
Hi Scott, thanks for the comment. Lovely part of the world, my father-in-law lives in Cape Coral.
Obviously I can only give you general advice. One of the important things to establish is if anyone/anything owns the structure, with US dams/weirs often the original builder is unknown and it can be complicated, in general however my knowledge of US dams/weirs is in these situations its more a case of people NOT wanted to own them! Due to maintenance, liability issues etc. So that is something where you’d need to establish with the local government who has the ownership of it. As for the physical process these are normally done by specialist contractors. Typically it would be chopped up by heavy plant machinery and then the material carted away, the specialist bit is more in stabilising the river afterwards – the weir represents a “step” in the long profile slope of the river, so after removal the profile (bed) will need to be smoothed out up/down stream to prevent erosion problems. Trev Bond’s piece on geomorphic effects of weir removal on this blog cover most of the issues. – That’s why its not really something you can just go ahead and do yourself! The key general geomorphology concerns given the general location would be increased stream power from faster flow leading to bank erosion, and removal of the structure which potentially traps sediment leading to siltation of docks/channels downstream.
The elephant in the room is why remove? Going only on the name “salinity weir” I would assume the structure is providing a clear tidal limit to the creek, so it may be removal will allow the tide to penetrate further up the creek, this might have the effect of causing bank erosion (from the rise and fall of tide) and/or if there are plants/fish/etc living in the creek that are not tolerant to brackish water they may die back/move upstream. I’m actually thinking less about the ecological considerations, than people with homes backing onto the creek who experience bank erosion in their gardens and/or death of a beloved plant and go looking for the cause!!
I like to see natural streams/creeks without structures in, however I’d proceed with a lot of caution here due to liability issues, my gut feeling is this could end up being an expensive project (over and above the physical destruction of the structure) purely because there are potentially so many people with a stake in how the creek behaves. Might be wise to try and speak to someone at the USDA.