Continual erosion of the river bank on the Columbia River was creating over 18" of property loss per year. Landscaping was slowly eroding and falling into the river, which required a new soft armor approach to restoring the riverbank. Many small springs added to the erosion and needed to be addressed to maintain current property line boundaries.
Background This project had many challenges from both a permitting standpoint and a access problem. This area was of high concerned for cultural significance as it was utilized by many Native American Tribes throughout history. An archiologist was on site to monitor all construction activities and to keep an eye out for potentially significant historical items. Access was extremely limited and all construction activities had to take place from a barge. All equipment was brought to the site daily as were the Envirolok system, backfill material and root wads that were placed for habitat improvement.
Engineering Provided by PBS Environmental PBS coordinated the environmentally-sensitive solution by working with all the stakeholders to procure permits from Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA Fisheries, Clark County, City of Vancouver, Department of Ecology, Washington Fish and Game, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the Home Owners Association.
Review Owners reaction, "This is such a great solution, we have our property back. I will tell everyone how great it was to work with Sunmark Environmental". Agency reaction: "This is a great solution for sensitive areas". "It gives us as regulatory agents more tools to work with, we look forward to implementing this system on other projects".