New Hampshire's Zealand River: Enough Already...Please...

A wild native brook trout from the Zealand River in New Hampshire.

By Bob Mallard - Executive Director, Native Fish Coalition

With a few of hours to kill during a recent fishing trip, I grabbed NFC National Chair Emily Bastian and took a ride to the Zealand River in the White Mountains Region of New Hampshire to check on the status of a years-long project to remove heavily compromised generations old gabion from the streambed.

While in the area last fall, we heard the droning of heavy equipment coming from a direction it shouldn’t have been. My guess was that work to remove the gabion had finally begun after years of planning. The sound of bulldozers and chainsaws sounded more like road construction than logging.

What is and What Could Be…

The Zealand River at its best…

The Zealand River is everything a wild native brook trout river should be, or at least could be, and everything a wild native brook trout river shouldn’t be, and is. To call it arguably the most beleaguered river in the region would be fair…

The Zealand River at its worst…

The Problem…

Gabion, or something like it, is said to date back to the ancient Egyptions. Leonardo da Vinci designed a type of gabion refered to as Corbeille Leonard, or Leonardo basket, which he is purported to have used in the construction of the San Marco Castle in Milan, Italy.

The gabion on the Zealand River was installed more than 50 years ago to try to “tame” the river. The impetus was to protect a USFS road that parallels it, and ensure access to a small dam that provides drinking water to the town of Bethlehem, New Hampshire.

The Zealand gabion worked for some time, or so we thought, until it succumbed to the elements. At one time some of the best fish-holding water in the river was where the gabion was. But that all changed as it broke apart, collapsed into the river, and was left high and dry by changing river flows.

The gabion also seemed to be doing a pretty good job of protecting the road until the epic floods of the 2000’s jumped the banks and compromised two notable sections of road and impacted a couple of more. Now it seems that each flood brings further damage to the gabion and more degradation of the river.

A badly collapsed bank and widened streambed on Zealand River just downstream of the gabion.

Actually, the gabion on the Zealand River committed suicide as the alterations to the river flow it caused undercut the structures, deepened the streambed, sped up the current, and detached the river from a critically important floodplain that once buffered flood waters by spreading out the water rather than sending it crashing downstream.

In the aftermath of back-to-back notable floods over a relatively short period of time, heavy equipment was brought in to rebuild the road, bulldoze the riverbed, reroute the river, and line the banks with riprap to try to keep it from happening again. While the work was done by local contracters, permits had to be issued by the USFS.

A badly damaged section of the Zealand River where it was bulldozed to rebuild the road.

Possible Mitigation…

For a decade or so, USFS has been looking at ways to mitigate the problems on the Zealand River. To be fair, while the work would benefit fish over the long haul, and there have been some fish population surveys, this is more about saving the road than saving the river.

I and NFC fully support the removal of the gabion on the Zealand River. In fact, while our offer was refused, we approached USFS about removing some of the smaller compromised sections of gabion using volunteers and hand tools to lessen the need for, and damage done by heavy equipment.

Several years ago I toured the site with the project leader from USFS. We crossed the river and ventured out into what was once a relatively large and unique to the area floodplain. Not the hummock-filled wetlands you see in low-gradient areas, but a series of now dry channels carved into the forest floor that left the river and rejoined further downstream.

While the folks at USFS were planning what to do, Mother Nature jumped in and opened up one of the larger side channels that had been dry for decades. It now flows most of the year, and during high water periods reroutes roughly 1/3 of the total flow away from the main streambed, slowing the flow down by spreading the water out.

The Work Begins…Or Something Else…

A recently detached section of gabion blocking the entire Zealand River…

As we pushed through the thick woods separting the river from the road, we stumbled out into the stream and almost on top of some recent excavation work. The bank just downstream and across from us was collapsed and sans the gabion that had been there for generations. Behind that was a large new temporary road. There was evidence of heavy equipment use all over the streambed.

As we approached the worksite I couldn’t figure out what we were looking at. A large section of gabion apparently pulled from the bank was now completely blocking the river. While water seeped through the porous caged rock structure in a few spots, I could see no way that fish, wild native brook trout in this case, could get upstream or downstream.

Did the heavy equipment do this, or did Mother Nature do it and the equipment was brought in to fix it? There were bulldozer tracks right up to the river blocking gabion on both the upstream and downstream sides. The streambed had been bulldozed for 50 yards or so downstream in what looked like an attempt to narrow it. And the outsized road that ended at the worksite was not built overnight…

We surveyed the area, took pictures, and looked for evidence of equipment that might have been left to finish the job or fix the damage. I thought they may have had a forced work stoppage due to recent rains. But there was no equipment to be seen and no one around to ask what was going on.

When I returned home I emailed both NH Fish & Game and USFS to ask what was going on and why, and to report finding an e-fishing net that someone had left on the bank. Last fall my wife and I came upon a partially submerged abandoned seining net just downstream of the worksite that we pulled out of the water and up onto the bank.

An abandoned seigning net left by USFS on the Zealand River.

After several follow-up emails and 8 days of waiting for a reply from USFS and/or NHFG, I started calling around to see what I could find out. I contacted the USFS Androscoggin office who directed me to the Saco office who directed me to the Pemigewasset office. The latter took my name and number and said someone would get back to me. I’m still waiting…

While USFS may have a reason for doing what they did, without a dialogue I have no way of knowing what that might be. And regardless of their intentions or any challenges they may have faced, leaving a wild native brook trout stream blocked in regard to fish passage in the middle of the summer is not something you should ever do. Why not at least drop a temporary culvert in?

What I saw may not even be legal, and that is where I am going next…

Looking downstream at the detached fish-blocking gabion.

Looking upstream at the detached fish-blocking gabion.

The end of the road cut into the worksite and missing gabion.

As far as federal lands go, National Forests are some of the most abused. Their mandate is notably different than the resource-first model employed by the Park Service. It’s the “multiple use” model, which often means “multiple abuse.” While some see the park model as too restrictive, there is much better oversight and checks and balances.