BULLITT COUNTY, Ky. — Bernheim Forest is working to create healthier waterways and habitats in the commonwealth.

What You Need To Know

  • Engineers are volunteering to help create dams to promote beaver habitats  

  • Dams stop moving water, which can benefit water quality by filtering out fertilizers and pesticides

  • Bernheim is home to more than 16,000 acres of land

The forest is teaming up with Louisville Metro's sewage department and an engineering firm to help foster wildlife habitats. 

Engineers with Gresham Smith civil engineering firm, like Kenneth Stewart, are taking their skills out into the wild. 

“We design everything water and wastewater related," Stewart said. "We design water and wastewater plants; we design the piping that goes from the plants to the houses and the subdivisions." 

Stewart and some of his colleagues are taking engineering inspiration from beavers. They are working to build structures similar to a beaver dam with the hopes of strengthening the beavers’ habitat.

Evan Patrick, natural areas manager, is overseeing the Beaver Dam Analog Project and guiding volunteers. He said Bernheim Research Forest advocates for animals who were persecuted, such as beavers.

“These are species that play really important ecological roles," Patrick said. "They fill ecological niches, and they provide ecological services. And when these species are either hunted or trapped, out of these areas, those roles go unplayed and it can create these ripple effects that negatively impact habitats and ecologies." 

Patrick said beavers build dams to stop moving water, which can benefit water quality by filtering out fertilizers and pesticides. The dams also create healthy habitats for many animals, including frogs, turtles and river otters. 

Keeping water quality high is important, Patrick added, because Bernheim protects more than 90 miles of streams and is the headwaters of more than a dozen streams outside the area.

“If that rain falls coming down in Bernheim, if those headwaters are in Bernheim, flowing out of our forest and into communities, that impacts not just the wildlife and the folks that work and live here around Bernheim but the communities that live hundreds or even thousands of miles downstream from our forest,” he said. 

Bernheim is home to more than 16,000 acres of land. The research forest works to educate people about nature and conservation. 

Related Stories