Curtiss Museum

Project: Curtiss Museum
Category: Wetlands
Location: Steuben County, NY
Watershed: Keuka Lake
Client: Glenn H. Curtiss Museum
Project Partner(s): NRCS; Trust for Tomorrow
Year completed: 2019

BluAcres provided technical services to restore waterfowl habitat on a Wetland Reserve Easement.

BluAcres acted as a subcontractor for Trust for Tomorrow on this project. The primary restoration objective on this site was to create additional areas of open water interspersed with wetland emergent marsh vegetation benefitting waterfowl, furbearers, and other wildlife associated with a marsh environment. The restoration enhanced the hydrology and vegetation components of the degraded wetlands on the Wetland Reserve Easement for the benefit of wildlife and water quality.
The site was historically degraded through clearing and draining for agricultural purposes, with its primary use as pasture though historical aerial photography shows evidence of row-cropping in the 1950s. Livestock usage on the site contributed to further disturbance and degradation of the natural wetland systems. Restored wetlands within the easement area now provide important wildlife habitat, travel corridors, as well as critical buffer within the Keuka Inlet corridor which helps to improve water quality within the Keuka Lake watershed. The design targeted waterfowl by creating open water areas in the wetland complex by restoring depressional wetlands and potholes. Although the design focused on waterfowl as the wildlife species of concern, the increase in the hydrologic and vegetative diversity of the degraded wetland benefits numerous species of amphibians, invertebrates, passerines, small mammals, pollinator species and other wildlife that rely on wetlands during some portion of their life cycle.

Services completed:

• Wetland Design
• Construction Drawings
• Construction Specifications
• Construction Staking
• Construction Oversite
• Quality Assurance Inspection
• As-built Survey
• Final Report