Confluence stream restoration specialists are working collaboratively with the Bozeman Creek Enhancement Committee (BCEC) to restore Bozeman Creek as it flows through Bogert Park. For over 30 years, this popular community playground and park has been host to Bozeman’s Farmer’s Market. Bozeman Creek flows six miles within the city limits to the confluence of the East Gallatin River. Over the decades, the creek has been channelized and tunneled through downtown as the city has grown. Gary Weiner of the National Park Service is coordinating restoration and public involvement. Gary’s services are on loan to the City of Bozeman through a grant. Primary objectives of the project are to restore water quality and natural processes of the creek. Last fall, Confluence stream restoration specialists and water resource engineers performed a site analysis and developed several conceptual plans. The benefits, risks, limitations, and relative costs of each alternative were presented to the public in a meeting at the Bozeman Public Library in early November. Alternatives ranged from widening the creek at select points to alleviate flooding, to adding a secondary channel, or slightly altering the location of the stream on the west side of the park. All alternatives are designed to create a meandering stream that brings visual appeal, fish habitat improvements, and better stream flow through Bogert Park. Confluence is completing the work to the BCEC at no charge to benefit the community that we live in and enjoy. Confluence Principal Jim Lovell has extensive experience restoring streams, trailways, and aquatic amenities in urban settings. His work throughout the U.S. has included parks, golf courses, urban walkways, and subdivision wetlands and ponds. Public comment on the Bozeman Creek project is welcome through the Bozeman Creek Enhancement Project webpage.

Confluence Consulting’s water resources engineer Ronda Burns recently attended the Montana Chapter of the American Fisheries Society meeting in Great Falls. She assisted Carol Endicott, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. Carol presented “Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Conservation in Lower Deer Creek: Population Replication, Nonnative Suppression, Barrier Construction, and Piscicide”. Confluence’s role in the project was performing hydrologic and hydraulic design for a fish barrier. Confluence also completed analysis and evaluation of several weir dimensions in order to determine the minimum dimensions of a structure that would maintain a four foot leap height and super critical flow at the toe in order to be a barrier for adult rainbow trout at all flows.

Confluence’s Marketing Director Kara Stermitz attended the Water, WasteWater, and Solid Waste Action Coordination Team (W2ASACT) Funding Workshop in Great Falls. The workshop was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Montana Rural Water Association. Confluence staff are skilled in assisting our clients in preliminary engineering reports and grant applications for a variety of state and federal programs, including the Renewable Resource Loan and Grant program, Treasure State Endowment Program, Future Fisheries, Community Development Block Grant program, State Revolving Loan fund and others. We stay abreast of program changes to offer our clients the most competitive applications.

Confluence staff members have been active in their communities, completing a wide variety of volunteer projects. 

Wetland scientist Brian Sandefur and Stream Restoration Specialist Mike Sanctuary have recently assisted an Eagle Scout candidate on a stormwater detention and drain next to Sacajawea Middle School in Bozeman, MT.  With Brian’s guidance, the scout created a wetland community in the drainage area.  Brian and Mike also assisted in reducing thistle and weed infestation in areas near the school.

Confluence’s principal Jim Lovell recently helped mentor youth in a youth bird hunting program sponsored by Pheasants Forever.  In the months ahead, Jim will be helping Love Inc., a nondenominational Christian organization committed to helping needy in the Gallatin Valley.  Each year, Jim and his wife Sue purchase, package, and distribute food to the needy during the holidays. 

Kara Stermitz, Confluence’s Marketing Director, is continuing to keep her fly rod wet by assisting youth in Livingston’s classrooms in their science curriculum on streams, macroinvertebrates, and fish habitat.  Kara assists in the classrooms by helping students to identify insects and by helping with curriculum on stream dynamics.    Kara also volunteers for the Park High Ranger Boosters and Livingston Football Association.  Kara assists numerous community groups in grant writing, helping to improve Livingston’s baseball fields, fund programs for disadvantaged youth, and improve community amenities.

Confluence has been retained to complete an irrigation water management study on Brown’s Gulch near Ramsay, Montana. The purpose of the study is to identify and assess the opportunities for increasing in-stream flows in lower Brown’s Gulch. Environmental goals are to improve fish habitat; mitigate water quality concerns such as temperature, nutrients, and siltation; and improve the efficiency and durability of the irrigation infrastructure. Confluence’s water resources engineer and project manager Ronda Burns, PE, will be collaborating with the private landowner, Watershed Restoration Coalition, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and private groups. Brown’s Gulch is a key tributary to Silver Bow Creek, part of the headwaters of the Clark Fork River. 

Confluence has worked on numerous irrigation studies and water resource studies with landowners.

Confluence has recently been retained by the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) to carry out a three year term contract for performing wetlands monitoring on MDT’s wetland mitigation sites throughout Montana.  Confluence’s Brian Sandefur, based in Bozeman, Montana, will be leading a team of 11 professionals to carry out annual wetland monitoring and reporting on MDT’s 23 wetland mitigation sites across the state.  All wetland work tasks will be completed to fulfill U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requirements for documenting success of wetland construction at each site.  Annual monitoring reports will be submitted to MDT and posted on their website.  Sandefur has delineated and monitored thousands of acres of wetlands and has executed numerous successful mitigation plans.  He is an effective team leader and works well with local, state, and federal agencies.

Confluence has been retained to quantify sediment loads from upland sources using GIS and Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) modeling strategies in the Boulder-Elkhorn TMDL Planning Area.  Confluence has significant experience modeling sediment using GIS based USLE sediment models.  We have successfully developed and implemented six watershed scale USLE models to characterize stream sediment:  Upper Big Hole, Middle/Lower Big Hole, Jefferson River, Tobacco River, Lower Clark Fork, and Shields River.  The models are used to characterize sediment loads and to establish potential load reductions in DEQ’s watershed planning process.  DEQ will utilize the model to summarize the extent and effectiveness of existing and/or potential riparian buffer conditions as they relate to various sediment sources unique to land uses within the watershed.  Various land use best management practices and other appropriate soil and water conservation practices will be developed.

Confluence has made ongoing progress towards designing rehabilitation plans for Goose Creek, located in the Upper West Branch of Priest River in the Idaho Panhandle. The Kalispell Tribe of Nations retained Confluence earlier this year to develop a conceptual design for restoring 4 miles of Goose Creek. Historic land uses along Goose Creek included channelizing several thousand feet of the creek. The conceptual restoration plan will include restoring the creek to its historic elevation in order to provide improved in-stream habitat and a functional floodplain with dense riparian vegetation. The conceptual plan for this large stream restoration project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2010.

Confluence's rehabilitation designs include stabilizing eroding banks such as this bank along Goose Creek

In 2005 in Madison County, Montana, a cooperative effort to restore a wetlands area was initiated by private landowners, state and federal agencies, and local nonprofit organizations. In July 2009, Confluence was retained by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to monitor the roughly 16 acre wetlands. Confluence staff completed wetland, open water, and vegetative mapping in addition to gathering wetland soils data. Stream monitoring has also taken place to develop a water surface profile. Greater sandhill cranes are known to nest in the area, and Rocky Mountain trumpeter swans winter on the site. Vegetation transects that Confluence has established allow detection of community changes, including status of noxious weed infestations. All of Confluence’s work has been completed in compliance with Corps of Engineers requirements.

The O'Dell Wetland Monitoring Site is located in historic ranching country.

Confluence recently completed the construction of two stream restoration projects near Pinedale, Wyoming. Each project involved narrowing existing stream channels using transplanted wetland sod mats and willows to improve fish habitat and sediment transport characteristics. In addition, high quality pool habitat was added to each stream to provide holding water for adult trout and fishing opportunities for anglers. The projects totaled over 2.5 miles of stream channel and were reviewed and approved by Wyoming Game and Fish biologists. Construction and labor were provided by Westslope Restoration, Inc. from Manhattan, Montana.

Before restoration Over-wide channel with a silt-laden streambed and very poor fish habitat.