Trout Unlimited and its partners in New York have had a busy few years replacing or improving barriers to fish passage on streams throughout the state.

In the past few years, they have replaced 23 barriers, reconnecting nearly 23 miles of stream habitat. The team tackled 10 projects in 2023 alone. Next year? Eight projects will reconnect an additional 18 stream miles.

“We’re the Barrier Busters!” said a laughing Brown, who manages TU’s restoration work in New York and Connecticut. “I know it’s corny. But it’s accurate.”

The efforts are helping trout and other aquatic species reach previously inaccessible habitat, which can be used for feeding, spawning or to find cooler water temperatures during the heat of summer.

Long before crews start the heavy lifting of removing barriers — mostly culverts — survey crews fan out across the landscape to access road-stream crossing.

“I don’t know the exact number of culverts we have collectively assessed at this point, but it is in the many thousands,” Brown said.

Culverts are often too small to adequately pass heavier flows, which can result in road-damaging floods. With the changing climate contributing to more severe and more frequent rain events, flooding has become an even more serious problem. Water pouring from the downstream end of the pipe often carves out a pool below it, and that drop can block fish and other stream dwellers from moving upstream.