Snake River Bayha Island Restoration

River Design Group provided planning, design, wetland delineation, hydraulic modeling, surveying and construction administration services to The Freshwater Trust (TFT) and Idaho Power Company (IPC) for an island enhancement project on the mainstem Snake River near Walters Ferry, Idaho. The intent of the project is to decrease solar gain, and increase water velocity, scour, and depth in the Snake River by expanding the existing footprint of Bayha Island. The project is expected to benefit native species including the endangered Snake River physa snail. The project was constructed in 2016 and monitoring is on-going.

In addition, RDG used unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to provide construction support surveys by capturing georeferenced aerial imagery during project implementation and by using Structure from Motion (SfM) to create high resolution digital surface models of nearby resource areas. RDG and IPC then used the resulting surface models to estimate the available fill quantities located on site to be placed for the expansion of the island footprint.