Bear Trap Creek Success Story !

 HABITAT RESTORATION PROJECT IN MATTYDALE’S BEARTRAP CREEK
written by Les Monostory
 
The Beartrap Creek stream reclamation project began in 1991 when an anonymous tipster contacted the recently formed Central New York Chapter of the Izaak Walton League.  The caller complained about severely polluted conditions in the creek that flows adjacent to the Syracuse Hancock International Airport, located a few miles north of the City of Syracuse.
 
Chapter members went out to Beartrap Creek and verified that the stream was indeed badly polluted, particularly in the Airport vicinity adjacent to Interstate 81 where a tributary from the Airport was loaded with trash, tires, and barrels of rusted oil and fuel containers.  The Central New York Chapter decided to adopt Beartrap Creek as a special reclamation project in concert with the Save Our Streams volunteer stream monitoring program that the Chapter had undertaken a few years earlier.
 
 
Background Investigations
Beartrap Creek is a 3 ½ mile long tributary of Ley Creek and Onondaga Lake.  The Creek flows in a general north-south direction, roughly parallel with Interstate 81, adjacent to the Mattydale community in the Town of Salina.  About half of the Creek’s watershed lies west of I-81, and half to the east, including a major portion of the Syracuse Hancock International Airport.
 
The Beartrap Creek watershed has undergone significant changes since the mid-1940’s, when the upper watershed consisted mainly of farmlands.  The stream was identified as a class C(T) trout stream in 1951 by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, although trout populations have been largely absent in recent decades.  Construction of the Syracuse Hancock Airport and the Hancock Air Force Base led to replacement of the former farmlands with buildings and pavement by the late 1940’s.
 
Following public complaints about pollution in the streams surrounding the Hancock Airport, the Onondaga County Health Department undertook an “Airport Contamination Study” in July 1990.  Surface water samples collected from Beartrap Creek and other Ley Creek tributaries were tested for glycol and nitrate pollutants.
 
In a May 1995 letter summarizing the stream study results, the Health Department reported that “After extensive sampling and dye testing, the stream appears to become enriched by runoff from the Airport (specifically, the deicer, ethylene glycol).  The enrichment causes the growth of various fungus and algae.”
 
Similar observations were made in 1991 and subsequent years by members of the Izaak Walton League’s Central New York Chapter, who undertook an annual “Save Our Streams” investigation of water quality parameters in Beartrap Creek, including physical, chemical and biological monitoring.  The CNY Chapter focused its monitoring efforts on the late winter period (March and April), when the effects of aircraft deicing chemicals were most noticeable.
 

Hancock Airport Installs Collection and Treatment Facility for De-Icing Chemicals
In July 1993, the NYSDEC issued a State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permit requiring the City of Syracuse, as operator of the Syracuse Hancock International Airport, to undertake a study of toxic or hazardous pollutants used on the Airport property.  The City was also asked “to evaluate the potential for the release of significant amounts of such pollutants to the waters of the State”.
 
A consulting engineer firm was hired by the City of Syracuse to begin the design phase for construction of an aircraft de-icer collection and treatment system.  A draft SPDES permit was issued in 1995 requiring the City to complete the design and construction of 
the treatment system by November 1996, and this $10 million facility was constructed and put into operation as scheduled.
 
Subsequent monitoring of water quality parameters in the ‘Airport tributary’ of Beartrap Creek by the Izaak Walton League’s CNY Chapter has shown gradual but steady improvements in the condition of the receiving waters in Beartrap Creek.  The collected stream data have shown modest improvements in all three categories of the physical, biological and chemical parameters used as indicators of stream water quality.
 
Additional Stream and Watershed Investigations
Volunteer stream monitoring has been enhanced since 1994 by the Project Watershed Consortium, which has expanded the original Save Our Streams monitoring program to include more schools and enhanced support from local industries and educational institutions, including the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and Syracuse University.
 
Student groups from Liverpool High School and the Roxboro Road Middle School in Mattydale have participated with Izaak Walton League members in monitoring water quality conditions in Beartrap Creek.  In the late 1990’s, student and citizen volunteers joined Central New York Chapter members in conducting several in-stream cleanups to remove tons of trash, barrels and tires from the ‘Airport tributary’.
 
Informal fish habitat surveys were conducted during spring and summer of 1998 by DEC fisheries biologist Tom Chiotti, who found limited fish life and a stream bottom consisting mostly of silt and mud, with a minimum of gravel and rocks.  Chiotti recommended that stream restoration measures should strive to improve available habitat in the stream by providing a number of deeper ‘holes’, overhead banks, and related cover for restoring a trout population in Beartrap Creek.
 
Information on the habitat conditions in Beartrap Creek was greatly enhanced with the acquisition of grant moneys from the Onondaga Lake Partnership in 2003.  The grant funded a 6-month investigation conducted by several parties including the Onondaga County Health Department’s Council on Environmental Health, and a Cornell University research team led by Dr. Piotr Parasiewicz.
 
The 2003 field investigation included habitat surveys conducted by Cornell University’s Instream Habitat Program, fish surveys undertaken with portable electro-shocking devices, mapping of the stream bed and watershed, and water quality measurements covering physical, chemical and biological parameters.
 
Results of the investigation were published in a January 2004 report entitled Ecological Status Analysis of Beartrap Creek.  The Cornell University Department of Natural Resources report basically concluded that Beartrap Creek had a reasonably healthy population of various minnow and sucker species, but the instream habitat conditions were not yet suitable for survival of trout.
 
Roxboro Road Middle School Students Undertake Habitat Improvement Project
 
In summer of 2006, Roxboro Road Middle School teacher Gary Lipp received a $2,600 Mini-Grant from the Onondaga Lake Partnership to undertake a limited stream study and restoration project in a section of Beartrap Creek located between the Middle School and Interstate 81 in Mattydale. 
 
Lipp’s Roxboro Road Middle School students have helped to monitor water quality conditions in the stream section located behind their school for the past decade or so, in conjunction with the Izaak Walton League’s Project Watershed stream monitoring program.  They were also aware of  Cornell University’s habitat studies and  Ecological Status Analysis report on Beartrap Creek.
 
In an effort to improve the habitat diversity within a section of Beartrap Creek located behind the Roxboro Road Middle School, Gary Lipp applied for a Mini-Grant from the Onondaga Lake Partnership to place several truckloads of stone cobbles in a stretch of stream approximately 25 yards in length.  Students from both the Roxboro Road School and North Syracuse High School helped to unload several truckloads of stone and placed them into Beartrap Creek during the summer of 2006.
 
In the two years since the stone cobbles were placed in the streambed, team members from the Project Watershed Consortium have surveyed macroinvertebrate populations in the rock-filled study area during May and October of 2007, and in June and October of 2008.  The initial survey in May of 2007 did not reveal significant habitat changes, but by October of 2007, the biological survey found an enhanced population of crayfish and minnows in the study area behind the Middle School.
 
In November 2007, the Onondaga County Division of Water and Environmental Protection reported that it had identified a number of “spotted minnows” collected at the site as Tesselated Darters.  These minnows are a close relative of the Johnny Darter minnow family, and are also found in several other tributaries of Onondaga Lake.
 
The biological surveys also noted a healthy population of Brook Sticklebacks, a small species of fish that was previously recorded in the 2004 Cornell University report.  Project Watershed investigators found that although they had collected crayfish and minnows in a nearby upstream section, what they noticed about the rock-“seeded” section was that it contained a diverse range of ages [and sizes] for both minnows and crayfish.  This appears to be a strong indication that the “seeded” rocks can act as nursery areas for both of these significant stream inhabitants.
 
In June of 2008, the Project Watershed stream survey team once again found a significant concentration of crayfish and darter minnows in the rock-enhanced section of Beartrap Creek.  While the long term goal of the Beartrap Creek stream enhancement project is to restore trout species to this C(T) trout classified stream, a useful intermediate goal is to provide a more diverse stream bottom habitat that will enhance the proliferation of minnows and aquatic invertebrates.  
 
Project Watershed stream surveys conducted on Beartrap Creek over the past decade have shown a steady improvement in stream macroinvertebrate populations.  Although the simple placement of stone cobbles into the silted sections of Beartrap Creek may appear to be an elementary strategy for enhancement of the stream habitat, this technique may turn out to be a very useful strategy for the long term restoration of the stream.
 
Currently, almost all of the trout-inhabited tributaries of Onondaga Lake lie in the watershed located south of the lake.  Future plans for the placement of additional rock-enhanced stream reaches in Beartrap Creek could lead to further improved habitat diversification.  As a result, we may yet see the return of viable trout populations to this small but inherently valuable northern tributary of Onondaga Lake.