Mild-Mannered Alter Ego

I frequently get asked what my winter job entails.  The long version is that I'm a civil engineer who focuses on wetland and stream restoration and sustainable stormwater.  Even though I've mainly focused on stormwater for the past year, my short answer is always, "I build swamps and rivers."  Just for fun, try telling someone that sometime and watch the range of emotions on their face: confusion, curiosity, disbelief, interest...

To get a quick idea of what I mean by building swamps and rivers, take a gander at this video of a gentleman kayaking down one of our restored streams in Reston, Virginia, last week.  This is what we build.

This section of stream is only a few months old, so the plants haven't yet had a chance to come up.  Even the mature trees down here are thinking about leafing out, but they haven't quite started yet.  Hopefully he'll make another trip when summer is in full swing.  For comparison, here are a couple of photos showing what we start with: steep, deep gullies, some of which don't even have water unless it's just rained.

In conjunction with Trout Unlimited, we're also hosting a fishing day for the local schoolkids later this spring in another restored Reston stream.  It'll be fun and educational; northern Virginia isn't a place where kids get a lot of exposure to the outdoors, let alone rainbow trout.