LOCAL ISSUES SHAPE HIGHWAY PROJECT

An FHWA project on the Idaho-Montana state line is a prime example of a local company and a Federal Highway Administration division office used innovative strategies to address complex local watershed issues. Faced with the need to stabilize a dangerously-steep slope along a reconstructed section of U.S. Highway 93 (a Scenic Byway) and to protect a tributary to a major salmon-spawning creek, FHWA's Western Federal Lands Highway Division combined their skills with local expertise to come up with a unique solution. involving 33,000 square feet of fabric.

Division highway engineers and local contractors covered the entire slope with this geotextile "blanket," preventing erosion of soil into the tributary. To revegetate and further stabilize the slope, the division sought the expertise of native plant specialists from Bitterroot Restoration in nearby Corvallis. Bitterroot developed a revegetation plan that involved collecting seeds from plants at the site, treating them to break their dormancy, growing new seedlings in greenhouses, and planting native wildflowers in "pockets" burned into the fabric.

Planting conditions at the site were far from ideal. but Jan Krueger, vice-president of Bitterroot, was confident of the project's success. "Native plants can handle extreme conditions," she says. "they're site-adapted and genetically-suited."

At the end of its first year, thanks to consistent federal-local teamwork, the slope is holding up just fine and is covered with a growth of healthy native grasses and plants which have already begun to reseed themselves.