BRATTLEBORO — Forestry students of the Windham Regional Career constructed a heavy duty portable skidder bridge. A portable skidder bridge is a temporary structure for crossing streams during logging.
The students worked under the direction of Forestry Instructor Dennis Hamilton, assisted by Vermont Association of Conservation District's Technical Assistance Contractor Kevin Beattie.
The students who helped with the skidder bridge construction are Taylor Crawford, Lukas Wallace, Alec Fleming, Shawn Lynch, Justin Lanouette, Keegan Marino, Justin Wheeler, and Troy Wood.
The Windham County Natural Resources Conservation District received support from the Vermont Association of Conservation District's Portable Skidder Bridge Rental Program to construct a heavy duty portable bridge to augment the district's local bridge rental program.
The funding for the bridge construction comes from the Ecosystem Restoration Program of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.
Additional support and technical assistance came from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. Sixty-three hours of volunteer time were donated by the Windham Regional Career Center Instructor and students.
Portable skidder bridges are becoming widely viewed as a best management practice for controlling sediment pollution associated with timber-harvesting operations.
When properly installed, used and removed, they create less stream-bank and stream-bed disturbance than other alternatives such as culverts. They are also economical because they are reusable, are easy to install, and can be transported from job to job.
Portable skidder bridges reduce the potential for sedimentation, channeling and degradation of aquatic habitat, while allowing loggers to harvest timber in compliance with Acceptable Management Practices (AMPs) for maintaining water quality on logging jobs in Vermont.
The Windham Portable Skidder Bridge Rental Program was started in 2009. The bridges are stored at Windham Regional Career Center in Brattleboro. Loggers who rent bridges are provided an educational packet that illustrates guidelines to follow for installation, use and removal of the bridges.