Banking on cows and willow trees to help fight flooding near Sussex
'If we can keep the water on the landscape, we're protecting the town from future flooding'
The rich pastures of Kings County offer a welcome menu to the dairy and beef cattle that graze there. The lush green grass and many streams and brooks are irresistible to hungry, thirsty livestock.
But as the cattle munch their way across New Brunswick's Kennebecasis watershed, they create an unintended problem.
Herds in search of a refreshing drink trample the banks of watercourses, chewing up the vegetation, churning up silt and turning fords into muddy, feces-filled swamps.
Worse, intensive agricultural activity can erode and alter the volume and direction of waterways, creating bigger headaches downstream when heavy rains hit and the land can't absorb all the water.
It's a problem Ben Whalen and his team at the Kennebecasis Watershed Restoration Committee have been working to counter.
The town of Sussex experienced historic flooding events in 2014, 2019, 2020 and again in February 2022, and the committee sees agriculture as a factor.
"When streams start to erode on a farm property or in a municipal area, that creates problems a lot of the time for us," said Whalen, the committee's program director.
Keeping water on the land longer
Streams and brooks that feed water to farms in the Sussex area can quickly become bloated torrents when heavy rain hits.
Whalen's group is taking a bioengineering approach to mitigate the impact, keeping the water on the land longer before it can fill up nearby streams. Bioengineering involves rebuilding natural defences that have been compromised by human activity.
"And the more sites like that we have, the more water we're holding on to the landscape, and therefore we're not sending it downstream, not impacting our municipalities that are usually further downstream."
A network of tributaries drains the land around Sussex, feeding into the Kennebecasis River.
"There are a ton of communities on the Kennebecasis, and the most important one for us is the town of Sussex, which is frequently flooded. So if we can keep the water on the landscape, we're protecting the town from future flooding."
The cow factor
As he talked, Whalen nodded toward the fish jumping in the rippling waters of the Passekeag Creek near Norton. Cleaner water is a major selling point for farmers, who want healthy livestock too.
"When cattle are moving, this is their water source as well," he said. "They come in, they'll sit here, they'll drink their water. If they're defecating in there and then the next cow comes in, essentially they're drinking some of that.
"It's like you and I going to the toilet and drinking out of the toilet. We don't want the cows doing that either. It improves their health by making sure they're drinking clean water."
Over the past three years, Whalen has negotiated with the farmer whose land borders the Passekeag Creek, persuading him to allow the restoration committee to dig up and rebuild the creek banks, fencing them off from grazing livestock and restoring a nearby cattle crossing.
It's a mammoth task. Earthmovers are brought in to dig up degraded shorelines, a foundation of rock is installed, then a layer of willow brush topped by a biodegradable blanket that holds a layer of soil in place.
Then the whole area is fenced off to give it time to recover.
There are 50 other sites like this in the Kennebecasis watershed, an area that takes in more than 100 livestock farms. Whalen and his crews have also installed 50 kilometres of fencing to protect shoreline habitats.
Working with willows
On nearby Mitchell Brook, Ellen MacGillivray and Abby Lamrock clad in hipwaders, pounded willow stakes into the muddy banks.
Willows love water and they'll send out a dense net of roots that hold soil in place. Added insurance against future erosion.
"The more sites like that we have, the more water we're holding onto the landscape, and therefore we're not sending it downstream, not impacting our municipalities that are usually further downstream."
Whalen knows the work being done here won't solve all the flooding problems faced by towns like Sussex, but it's a good start.
"At the least we're maintaining the status quo, so things aren't getting any worse. And with climate change and a growing population, maintaining the status quo is going to be an important achievement."
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