I’ve been filming over at Fort Union Ranch near Watrous, NM to follow the amazing work Josh Miner‘s family and extended team have been making on the ground and along the waterways.   So I knew Meagan Larsen was teaming up with Bill Zeedyk as her mentor on her Ecological Restoration graduate study project focused on four large Alluvial Fans at the ranch.

For the first Alluival Fan, the treatment Meagan and Bill designed featured a Plug and Spread:  Plugging a steeply incised channel with a large berm so that run off would be diverted back out to the Alluvial Fan.  The diverted water would then Spread across the Alluvial Fan, its natural outlet, and ultimately restore sheet flow back to the wide valley floodplain below.  Zachary Bartlett captured the treatment being implemented in 2020 via drone and video.

Several seasons later while at the ranch with Bill, we had the opportunity to check in on the Alluvial Fan and capture how it was responding to the treatment.  I’ll hold off on showing the quite noticeable changes already happening…but am looking forward to hearing what Meagan is finding out in her ongoing research!

One important point Bill made as we walked the project still echoes for me…“Alluvial Fan restoration is a Missing Gap in wetland restoration…and it needs more attention”