Protecting water quality is an important facet of Swan Trust’s mission. Sedimentation from soil erosion is the biggest threat to water quality on our Preserves, so we are tackling problem areas by re-routing trails that travel directly downslope and remediating eroded areas with natural materials. In the process of working on one of these trails in fall 2018, an historic household dump site was also cleaned up.
A trail on the Star Branch portion of Big Swan Headwaters Preserve was an old logging road that traveled straight down a long, steep slope to the pristine Star Branch. In summer 2019, we hired a heavy equipment operator to create numerous berms and swales, diverting storm water off the trail and leveling out erosion gullies in the trail.