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Winter 2001
Photographs
by Pat Wadecki | Words by Debra Shore
It
began as a dream, the inchoate yearning of one man —
a dreamer — standing high on a hill overlooking a flooded
valley of a ditched stream. There had been a tremendous
rain. It was his humble job, as a new ranger for the conservation
district, to find the lost picnic tables.
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"Nippersink
means 'The Place of Little Waters,'" said Ed
Collins, who was saddened that the waters were relegated
to a ditch. "This stream now gives back to her
people the priceless gift of local wilderness."
Photo by Laurel Ross.
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To
his astonishment he saw — lo and behold — the
natural meanders of a wild river. Like a memory made real,
the floodwaters had settled in sinuous depressions marking
the ancient channel, where once the river ran, before it
was shunted into the straightjacket of a ditch.
And
the dreamer dreamed of un-ditching a noble river —
of restoring the gentle meanders, of setting the waters
free.
It
took years, of course. It took big money, big machines,
hours knee-deep in mud, choking in dust, backbreaking work.
It took persuasion, planning, research, a team. Flying overhead
to study the land, digging down to find old channels.
So
the dream became a waking vision, the vision became a plan,
and the ranger became a restoration ecologist, leading the
team that set the waters free.
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 Photo
Essay
How the meanders were restored
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Born Again River: Remeandering the Nippersink
