Restoring Hernage Creek
- mikeballmedia
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
How AloTerra and Partners Are Reviving an Ephemeral Watershed in Eagle, Colorado
Hernage Creek, a dry and deeply-incised channel on the outskirts of Eagle, Colorado, doesn’t look like much at first glance. For most of the year it sits still and silent, its flows arriving only during spring runoff or rare flash-flood events.
This fall, AloTerra Restoration Services, working alongside Otak, ERO Resources, and the Town of Eagle, launched an ambitious low-tech, process-based restoration effort to help the creek heal.
Why Hernage Creek Needs Help
The challenges on Hernage Creek are subtle but serious.
Years of flash floods, macro-environmental changes, erosion,, and decreases to the annual base flow (caused in part by upstream diversions) have carved the channel deeper and deeper.
This channelization has lowered the water table - disconnecting it from its natural floodplain and putting stress on the native Cottonwood galleries and adjacent Chapparal forest.
As fluvial geomorphologist Ethan Ader from Otak explains, “This creek is ephemeral. It only really flows with spring runoff… but we know when flow moves through here it does erode and move quite a lot of material and erode away fine material” .
Over time, this incision impacts riparian health, drains moisture from surrounding soils, and limits groundwater recharge. Without intervention, the channel will continue to deepen, drying out the adjacent landscape and amplifying erosion during major storm events.
A Low-Tech Approach Rooted in Natural Processes
Despite the complexity of the problem, AloTerra and partners are intentionally working with the landscape, not against it.
Their strategy involves building a wide-range of low tech process-based restoration features including beaver-dam analogs (BDAs), post-assisted log structures (PALs), and other hand-built wood-and-willow features designed to slow water, trap sediment, and gradually raise the channel bed.
Ader describes how the team identified ideal restoration zones: “We walked the entire site… and picked a handful of priority areas. We were looking for places that were kind of mildly entrenched… and had access to the floodplain” .
From there, the crew began building structures using harvested willow, downed woody debris, and posts driven into the streambed.
“We've been out here this week and last week building these wood structures… to help slow flow down, spread it out, get it out onto the floodplain,” Ader explains. “We want all of these rivers to be connected, if possible, to their floodplains” .
AloTerra’s Craftsmanship in Action
On the ground, the work requires craftsmanship, intuition, and an understanding of how water behaves, especially in an environment where water isn’t currently flowing.
Forester Kieran Clute of AloTerra notes that working in an ephemeral channel makes this site unique: “We're working here in a dry channel, whereas typically we're working in water… here we're just trying to look at the channel, look at the natural processes already occurring and predict where the water is going to want to flow in a flash flood” .
Without water or sod (two features that normally help with BDA construction) the crew had to get creative.
“It means we've just had to go really tight with our wicker weave structures,” Clute says. “The last few days we’ve been taking willows and folding them into, like, little pills and jamming them into all the open spaces” .
Learning From Beavers—Literally
For AloTerra’s Billy Watson, the inspiration behind these structures is simple: follow the beavers’ lead.
“Some of the guys on the crew call me the Beaver Boy,” he laughs. “I’ve been learning the beaver’s ways… trying to get myself into the mind of the beaver and learn why they do what they do and why they're so good at it” .
Watson explains that the team places structures where they can intercept sediment and slow incision: “There’s some pretty bad incision… So what we’re trying to do is put some structures in… that will hopefully collect some sediment and kind of stop the incision that's happening in the channel” .
And because Hernage Creek rarely flows, everything must be built to survive long dry spells and sudden intense floods.
“These might not see a lot of water over the next few years,” Watson says. “But eventually there’s going to be a big flood event… and we want these structures to be solid… when that big event happens” .
Collaboration at the Core
Restoration at this scale is a team effort. AloTerra, Otak, ERO, and the Town of Eagle each bring different expertise: engineering, ecology, construction, and local stewardship.
“It takes a real interdisciplinary team to have a successful project,” Ader emphasizes. “Having AloTerra, who really knows how to build these things… and ERO who are ecological specialists… really makes it successful” .
Clute echoes this sentiment: “There’s not a real defined hierarchy. We’re just collaborating… Everyone’s willing to get dirty, to grab brush, to swing the sledgehammer” .
Looking Ahead: Monitoring and Long-Term Stewardship
Perhaps the most exciting part of the project is that it doesn’t end once the structures are built.
The Town of Eagle and project partners are committed to long-term monitoring, installing sediment stakes and photo points to document how the creek responds over the next decade.
Clute explains, “We can get some really good data on what these structures are doing and how much sediment is actually being deposited… It’s going to be really cool data to look back on and have some science-backed outcomes” .
Ader agrees, noting the importance of stewardship beyond construction: “The other key will be to monitor it over time… and maintain stewardship of this area after the project’s done” .
A Creek on the Path to Recovery
Hernage Creek may not be thriving today, but thanks to AloTerra and partners, its future is looking brighter. The structures now lining its bed will help rebuild the channel, reconnect the floodplain, restore vegetation health, and support a more resilient watershed.
Photographs by Erik Poppen
As Billy Watson wisely puts it, “Every site has its own beauty and every landscape has its own lessons to teach you… all the answers are right in front of us”.
