Restoration of College Creek has been put on hold until funding is found for the remaining three phases of the project.

Last year, the first phase of restoration redesigned the area of the creek, which flows throughout campus, from the steam tunnel by the Physical Education Building east to Wallace Road, said Rick Fox, landscape architect for ISU.

“Our goal is to restore and then maybe add some walking paths and places to sit so people can go down and take advantage of these areas…sit, read a book,” Fox said.

Sections of College Creek are being redesigned and rebuilt in order to reduce erosion. Phase one was funded for completion last year, but phase two was put on hold when the funding had to be redistributed.

Fox said he hopes to receive funding for the continuing phases over the next few years. Phase 2, the area of the creek around the Memorial Union parking ramp will be next on the agenda leaving Phase 3, the area from the parking ramp to Knoll Road and Phase 4, the area from Knoll Road back to the tunnel walk.

“Hopefully, phase two will be funded for next year, that, of course, is at the discretion of President [Martin] Jischke. He looks over funding requests,” he said.

Phase one, Fox said, helped control erosion problems in that area of the creek.

With the growth of so many trees around the creek area, Fox said a canopy of leaves formed. This canopy did not allow sunlight to reach the ground, causing the grass that held the soil together to die.

Because of this, erosion from the water was far more destructive and threatening to the creek environment.

“When we have heavy rain events, we get a lot of volume and a lot of pressure, which results in increased velocity, the more velocity, the more erosive ability it [water] has,” Fox said.

He said the normal effects of erosion are healthy in nature, but not when it takes place in a controlled environment, such as the ISU campus.

Through an engineering study conducted six to seven years ago, “we came up with engineering-type solutions that we just weren’t happy with,” Fox said. “Those solutions would not leave us as an end result, the kind of natural looking environment that we wanted.”

Fox said they did not want to have just a “channel that water ran through, we wanted to have a natural looking environment that took on the natural qualities that people always associate with streams, rather than sides that were lined with steel or concrete.”

Dean McCormick, manager of construction administration, is working with Fox by building and reshaping the banks. Dean said they are planting grass and layering rock to channel water in a way to limit water erosion.

In order to keep erosion from destroying the bank, large rocks were placed in the ground and covered with smaller rocks.

A fabric is then placed over the rocks with grass seed underneath. In areas where the bank is steeper, lifts are formed by wrapping lifts of soil in the fabric forming steps. After the grass seed grows through the fabric, willow whips are planted to form a root system that holds the soil.

Fox expected Jischke to give the project consideration because, “President Jischke has been a huge supporter of the campus landscape environment.”

He said Jischke has just recently appropriated funds for tree restoration by planting more than 600 trees on central campus and more than 300 around street and sidewalk corridors.