Riverbank erosion accelerating in Avening
Nearly 2,800 square metres of farmland has been lost to erosion in the area known as Bank 8 of the Mad River in recent years.
Laura Wensink, river restoration technician with the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority (NVCA), says the area upstream of Carruthers Memorial Park in Avening will be the focus of a realignment and bank stabilization project in 2024.
“Over the past two decades, the bank has been eroding about one metre per year, but between 2016 and 2018 it eroded three metres per year,” says Wensink.
The area has limited forest cover which makes it vulnerable to erosion. A plan unveiled this week would see the river diverted to the south, with a new side channel passing through an already forested area. The current river channel is slated to become an Oxbow Wetland. Wensink says the project will be “fill neutral” with earth excavated to form the new channels used to construct an earthen plug for the current riverbed to form the wetland.
An agreement has already been reached with one of the adjacent landowners to allow access for heavy equipment. Negotiations are in progress with a second landowner. Wensink says the NVCA is proceeding with the permitting process so they’ll be ready to spring into action if and when agreements are reached.
The total cost of the proposed work is estimated at $120,000 and funding commitments are already in place for 69 per cent of the cost, including a $10,000 commitment from the Friends of the Mad River.
Additional fundraising efforts are planned for spring and volunteers expect to be tree planting in the Carruthers Memorial Park corridor by May. Most of the work on the Bank 8 stabilization project will occur over two weeks in late summer or early fall, and a wetland planning event will follow in August or September.
In 2023, native trees were planted in the Bank 7 area, and a vegetated rock buttress was installed at Bank 2, which abuts the road into the park.
Wensink says that project has multiple benefits: It increases habitat value, the plants shade the river, and the bank is protected from further erosion, which will preserve the roadway.
