Calciform Creek Care

Happy Monday! Our vivacious morning started with a voyage to Ohio’s sixth largest city…you guessed it, Parma. We met up with some new faces, and rekindled memories with some old as we set out to refresh our memory of BEHI. To all of you who are not up to date with your creek evaluation knowledge, BEHI stands for Bank Erosion Hazard Index. While we thought our day was going to be filled fully by BEHI we took a sucker punch to the occipital lobe when we were barraged with the additional acronyms NBS (Near Bank Stress), LWD (Large Woody Debris), QHEI (Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index), and PS (Pebble Survey). After bringing these new acronyms into our vernacular and through our nimble skulls we began to practice the tests in Big Creek.

After much tribulation in the wader department, Graham finally got a pair that worked out for him…or so he thought. Under the supervision of our sweet yet sassy scientist Sara we began our battle against erosion. The different surveys took into account principles of the creek such as bank material, bank height, root density, and any anthropogenic materials in the stream.

Now comes the time in our blog when you can finally learn the truth about Graham’s waders. They may have seemed stable and sturdy at first, but once confronted by water they folded. After diligently deciding whether a certain deposition bar was comprised of gravelly silt with trace sand, a sneaky friend entered into the gaping holes near the anterior face of the proximal portion of the patella, rendering him into a cranky state for the rest of the day.

Wow! While we had not heard much about deer in Big Creek, we encountered dozens of intrepid deer who ventured to the rivers edge to lap water from the creek’s calm thalwag into their whiskered mouths.

We look forward to doing the BEHI on our own tomorrow in the tributaries of the Euclid Creek that run through Acacia.

Hootie-Hoo,

-CG, Graham, Alex S.

How are you staying out of the sun?