Hello. I am Brian Kelder with the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration’s Stream Continuity Program. In my role as DER’s Stream Crossing Specialist, I conduct trainings and provide technical assistance to municipalities for culvert replacement projects that improve flood resilience and stream habitat.
In this presentation I will be providing information related to DER’s Culvert Grant Program, but I am available throughout the year to discuss culvert issues and potential culvert projects. Feel free to reach out at any time with questions. I can provide the most guidance on projects that are still in the planning or early phases, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
The information I am presenting here is intended to help prospective applicants to the Culvert Replacement Municipal Assistance (CRMA) Grant Program better understand some important aspects of developing and implementing successful culvert replacement projects.
First, I will take a few minutes to go over some key things to address when you are preparing for ANY culvert replacement. I am also going to highlight some basic questions to ask when you are evaluating whether a project is a good fit for the DER CRMA program.
Before you begin a culvert replacement project, DER recommends spending some time on initial data gathering, analysis, and discussion that will help you plan and develop your project. This initial assessment requires little effort and investment and will help immensely in project development.
This is not a complete list of the things that you should think about, but the topics I will mention are important.
There are plenty of culverts that need to be replaced in Massachusetts and the odds are that every municipality is aware of quite a few. Since these upgrade projects can take a considerable investment of time and money to complete, it is important to make sure that you choose your projects well and set them up for success. A well-implemented replacement will pay off over the long term. A good project is set up to allow the culvert to be replaced with an upgraded structure as efficiently and painlessly as possible.
There is no one right way to go about a culvert replacement, but in general, you will be setting yourself up for success if you have clear goals, knowledge of the site, knowledge of the site constraints, and a solid scope and plan for the future.
So what are the project goals? The overarching goal is painfully simple, right? Replace the culvert. It’s not quite that simple though. Any long-lasting infrastructure project like this should consider the needs of a range of stakeholders. It is important to have all of the necessary stakeholders involved in developing the goals. You do not want to miss something and find out when it is too late.
During the planning process, all parties should be involved. The DPW, Conservation commission, the Design Team, or any others you identify – each project is different.
It is extremely helpful to meet on site with all the stakeholders to clearly explain and understand everyone's goals for the culvert replacement project.
It is important to understand each stakeholder may have different goals and some might conflict. Right, we know the conservation commission goals are going to be focused on environmental considerations. The DPW’s goal may be to replace the culvert to avoid road failure during flooding. The community might want a sidewalk on the road.
The photo on the right is an example where the culvert was replaced and a number of stakeholder goals were not met. Money was invested in the replacement, but the crossing is still undersized , ecological connectivity was not addressed, stormwater was not handled properly. Make sure your project doesn’t end up like this.
Culvert replacement projects meeting the stream crossing standards provide benefits that improve both the roadway and the river and more often than not, are able to meet the goals of multiple stakeholders.
Outlining these different sets of goals will also help as you evaluate whether your project is a strong candidate for the CRMA grant program and will help answer the project benefits section in the CRMA Application.
This might go without saying, but you need to know your site before you can plan for it. One of the first things to know is how big the stream is—in terms of bankfull width, that is. Bankful width is a measure of the natural width of the channel that carries most regular flows of the river and is responsible for transporting most of the water, most of the sediment, and most of the other material that the river carries downstream. It generally corresponds to the channel width at a flood that is likely to occur every 1.5 to 2 years. The Stream Crossing Standards require a span to be 1.2 times, or 120%, of this width, which has strong benefits for both roads and wildlife because it lets the stream act like a stream.
Without this value of bankfull width, you can’t begin to guess how large the structure span of your replacement will be. Even for a new project, where you may be looking to a consultant to measure the bankfull width, you can (and should) have an idea of bankfull width before you start spending money.
Preferably, bankfull width estimates are based on field measurements, but using a predictive tool (like USGS’s streamstats tool) can be okay for initial planning purposes. Without this value, you won’t be able to have a reasonable understanding of project scope. For example, whether you will be subject to MassDOT review under chapter 85.
Without understanding your scope, you will be left to guess at what the project budget would look like at almost any phase.
For a new project, you can either measure bankfull width yourself, ask your conservation commission or conservation agent, if you already have a consultant engaged you could ask your consultant, or you could ask us and we can provide resources on how to estimate and/or measure bankfull width (we can only answer these questions before the RFR is released though).
Since understanding bankfull width is so critical to a culvert replacement project, I am going to linger on the measurement for a moment. We need to be careful where we measure bankfull width because an undersized culvert can affect channel characteristics including bankfull width and, as a result, cause us to pick a culvert that is either too big or too small for the site. This is not something that you want to find out later in design or, worse yet, when you are done with construction.
Bankfull width should be taken outside the influence of the existing culvert. This may be more than 100 feet upstream or downstream, and frequently is. As you can see in this photo, the channel immediately upstream of the culvert is unnaturally widened. This is a result of the undersized culvert downstream. When the undersized structure is removed, we would expect the channel to revert to a condition that is more like what we see further upstream.
During the design phase, DER recommends project managers or conservation commissions to require that plans indicate where bankfull was measured to allow for verification that the measurements were taken outside the influence of the existing culvert.
In addition, there are other aspects of the site and the watershed that it is helpful to understand as you plan your project and consider whether it is a good candidate for seeking DER funding. These include things like history of flooding at the site. Any documentation of flooding history or costs associated with it are great to have. Other barriers (for example, dams or undersized culverts) that exist on the stream. It is very helpful for both project planning and for helping us at DER think about your site to know about these other barriers. Nearby barriers to wildlife or to water help put the project in context. I will touch on that more in a minute. Also, past or expected changes to the watershed (or to the roadway) are important to know. This is your chance to plan for the next 5 decades or so if you replace the structure correctly. If you expect the road to need more use or the area to become more (or less) developed, you should consider that in your planning. It is also important to understand that land use can have impacts on flood frequency and flood size, habitat quality, water quality, and other factors.
This is an example from one of our training sites that highlights why it is important to think about other infrastructure on the stream. In this example, the stream flows from the bottom of the screen toward the top. The aerial photo shows the culvert that is being replaced at the bottom followed by two small derelict dams downstream of the culvert—dam one and dam two—as well as a culvert downstream at Lake Street.
This is important information about the site for two reasons. Dam #1 is failing (in fact, it’s already breached) and is unlikely to be holding back sediment throughout the design life of the replacement culvert. It is close enough downstream that when it is gone, the streambed at the replacement culvert will change in elevation. This is something that needed to be evaluated in the culvert design in this case. Also, the nearby migration barriers for fish and wildlife limit the amount of habitat improvement that can be expected when the culvert is replaced. This would affect the environmental benefit of the project unless there are plans to address the other barriers.
Knowing about upstream and downstream infrastructure will help with design and will also help evaluate the environmental benefit of the project.
Continuing from the previous slide, this is a closeup of a longitudinal (or long) profile which shows a side view of the elevational profile of a stream.
This is a critical component of the engineering and design phase of a culvert replacement as your engineer will use it to help set the culvert at the proper elevation and slope and to ensure that the new stream bed is consistent with what is in the natural channel.
I am showing this to illustrate that knowing about the downstream dam I was just describing, was critical for this particular project. Sediment impounded behind the failing dam has artificially flattened the stream slope downstream of the existing culvert. Here’s the existing culvert, here’s the flattened area downstream before the derelict dam here. The red line shows the lower limit of the expected streambed after the dam is gone. As you can see, if the structure were to be replaced at the same elevation and the dam were to wash away or be removed, it may perch or undermine the new structure, causing a new migration barrier for fish and wildlife and/or shortening the structure’s life. It is helpful to identify any of these upstream or downstream grade controls as early in the process as you can to inform the scope. During the design and engineering phase of work, your consultant should survey a longitudinal profile well upstream and downstream (usually several hundred feet in each direction).
When you are scoping a project, there are often easily identifiable site constraints that you can flag based on your experience with the location and/or a quick site visit. The site constraints that I mean are things that can’t easily be moved or moved at all. For example, things like the height of the road fill over the structure, whether there’s a sewer or gas line through the road, whether there are houses adjacent to the culvert, or other things that you see when you’re on the site. It is important to identify and understand those features upfront so they don’t become costly redesign issues further on in the project.
So a question to ask yourself is, “Is my project a good fit for the CRMA grant program?” Before you spend time preparing an application for CRMA, it is worthwhile to evaluate whether you think it is a good fit for the program. This is true with any grant program you might approach. Since DER generally receives a large number of applications, it is worth your time to consider whether the project you are submitting is the best fit of the structures that are on your town’s high priority list.
It’s of course important that replacing the culvert is a high priority for the town and that the town is committed to the project, but your #3 structure may be more competitive than your #1 structure. Think like a grant reviewer – consider the scoring criteria and try to put yourself in a grant reviewer’s shoes.
DER is looking for projects like this—that move a structure that is not compliant with the stream crossing standards and is causing infrastructure risk and is a fish and wildlife barrier— to a structure like this, which meets the stream crossing standards, improves the wildlife corridor for fish and terrestrial wildlife, accommodates natural stream processes, allowing sediment and other materials to move downstream during floods, and is resilient to increased flows during floods and other events.
So, some questions to ask yourself when you’re thinking about fit: For a project to be a good fit for the CRMA program it will need to have strong overlap between environmental and public safety benefits. Among the things you should consider are: Are environmental improvements substantial? I’ll touch more on this one in a minute. Second, is this a priority project with a path forward? Whether this is a true priority for the town is important to consider and has the town considered ways to invest in the project? And is the town committed to moving the effort past the CRMA funded stage? And third, will the project meet the Stream Crossing Standards? Meeting the stream crossing standards is at the core of the CRMA program. If there are clear site constraints that are likely to severely limit your ability to meet the standards, your project may not be the best fit for the CRMA program.
So back to the environmental context. It is important to consider the environmental context of your project. We don’t expect you to be an ecologist, but you should be thinking (or asking someone) whether the project you are proposing is going to have a substantial habitat benefit.
To the extent possible, try to look at the bigger picture. Are there nearby barriers, as we discussed earlier, both upstream and down? Is there a plan to address them if they’re there? Are there things that you can identify like park land or other open space upstream and down that this might be connecting that might improve the habitat value of the stream? Are there other stresses to the stream that you can identify? Things like heavy development pressure, intensive agriculture, or water quality issues that even when you improve the structure, are not going to be addressed. Those are things to think about and to know and to share.
There are some desktop tools available to look at this, including some referenced in the Appendices that are included in the grant materials in the RFR. You can ask us our opinion during the pre RFR period. Or, you can ask your conservation commission or other people who know the stream. If it seems like a stretch to you or to others, maybe you should look at other projects on your list and see if they seem like stronger candidates.
When you prepare an application, tell us everything you know about the ecological context of your project and we will do our best to evaluate and to see if we can find more information.
Having established clear project goals can often help define why the project is a priority for the community as well. In addition to the ecological and environmental benefits of projects, DER evaluates projects based on a variety of community benefits. Things like public safety—whether the improvements effect public safety and health, reduce risk to the community by eliminating a hazard, or improving emergency response capability, reducing flooding. Economic impacts, like positive impacts to the local economy or cost savings. Community benefits, like reestablishing community connections, enhancing recreation or access, or other things.
Providing specific details on how the proposed project will benefit your community is helpful to the CRMA grant reviewers. It’s more helpful to be specific than to provide general information.
Is the scope appropriate and realistic? Having a scope that is well thought out will help you at every stage of a project, whether or not you’re coming to us for funding. Almost all culvert replacement projects will span more than one year from start to finish, so you should be thinking of your project scope at more than one time scale.
For the CRMA Grant, your scope should only include work that can be completed during the grant period. You should know what permits to expect and the timelines of those permits, especially if you’re addressing permitting as part of your CRMA application. And know what it will mean to meet the stream crossing standards at your site. As I mentioned earlier, if you don’t know what it means to meet the stream crossing standards, it’s very hard to have a clear scope and to know what your project is going to look like. For the broader project, it’s important to understand what your next steps will be after this funding cycle and have a plan to move past this cycle through to completion.
CRMA grant reviewers will be looking to see that you are thinking on both of these time scales as well. We want to help boost projects that provide solid benefits, and we want to boost projects so that they are likely to be completed. So while we want to see a one-year scope, we want to see that you are thinking at a broader timescale and have a path forward to completion.
To help think about the process, we at DER think about culvert replacement in phases. These are the phases we think of, shown here. The breaks between phases are somewhat arbitrary, but can often help when you are thinking about your project scope and your timeline. It is critical that you know what you can get done in the CRMA funding cycle. And it will be some chunk of this process.
It is also important that you are thinking about your timeline, as I mentioned, past the phase you are targeting. This will help you identify how you are going to fund the whole project and it will help you describe your plans in your CRMA application. It may also help you identify other funding sources that can help you and when you would want to approach those sources.
More information on the CRMA grant program is available at the link shown on this last slide. More information on other services offered by the DER Stream Continuity Program, including staff contact information, is available at the DER website.
Thank you for listening and best of luck with your projects.