By Janis Keating

Construction in a natural area creates varying sets of problems, especially if the project plan is to preserve, renew, or enhance that natural state. The first task is ensuring that the equipment used does more good than harm to the soil and vegetation. Considering the size and weight of most earthmoving equipment, this is a major challenge. In addition, for operational stability, equipment such as excavators and backhoes requires a level surface, which nature seems to abhor as much as vacuums.

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources (WADNR) faced such challenges when, in conjunction with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WADFW), it cleared, redug, and reopened some critical salmon spawning areas, previously closed by years of silt segmentation, in Olympic Peninsula streams.

“If an operator wants to make a slope, most machines will have to be at a similar position to what you’re digging,” says Don Roller, WADNR road maintenance and equipment management analyst. “For example, with excavators and backhoes configured with nonarticulating buckets, a machine must be positioned on the top or bottom of a slope to excavate the slope to design specifications. However, with the Helac PowerTilt—a bucket swing attachment from Helac Corporation in Enumclaw, Washington—the operator can excavate parallel with the slope and build to specifications while the machine is on even ground. With less repositioning of the machine, less ground and vegetation is disturbed, allowing for a better and cleaner finished product.”

The attachment enables operators to adjust the bucket to a variety of angles (up to 134–180°, depending on the model) regardless of the machine’s position. Eight models are available, from the TT-5, rated for a maximum 4,000-lb. machine weight, to the TT-12, rated for a maximum 75,000-lb. machine weight. To illustrate how the PowerTilt works, Helac compares a backhoe boom and dipper to a human arm, explaining that a PowerTilt gives the bucket the same dexterity as a wrist. The gear-driven design also makes the unit more compact than other similar components.

WDFW, with collaboration from WADNR’s Forest Practices Division, has typed streams on a scale of one to five; one, two, and three are classified as “fish-navigable” while four and five are classified as “non-navigable.” Through WADNR’s road maintenance program, all streams crossing under roads are typed; culverts and bridge sizes correspond to fish-bearing or nonfish-bearing streams. If outdated culverts of any type are inadequate for fish passage, they are reconstructed by designed specifications.

Designed fish passages can be pools where fish rest and/or spawn. Made from logs or wire-mesh baskets, these pools are filled with rock that holds back the water to a depth designed to ease the passage of salmon and other fish species. Stream and road maintenance is always in action keeping fish passages open and preventing road-surface silt from entering streams. This is where the department finds the swing attachment most effective: lessening the movement of machines around streams, ditches, and road surfaces, and generating less loose material and silt that could eventually enter the streams.

Roller credits the PowerTilt with making the job easier. “We’ve found it’s versatile and has increased our production about 25 to 30%. It’s so compact—no outside cylinders or hoses that can get broken.” The department uses the equipment, he says, “to maintain road systems in forest roads, replace culverts, remove slides, remove unstable side-cast material from previously constructed roads, place riprap material around culvert inlets and out-falls and bridge abutments, and [address an] array of road maintenance chores encompassing fish habitat, safety, and liability issues.”

Since the stream project was started a few years ago and streams were restocked, the salmon have made a strong comeback. “Those streams are now being used—they’re now being fished,” says Roller.

Janis Keating is a frequent contributor to Forester Communications publications.

GEC - November/December 2003