Client
The Mosaic Company
______

Location
Polk County, Florida
_________

Key BCI Staff
John Kiefer, PE, PWS
Mark Schwartz, PE, CFM
Lynn McGoff
______

Project Costs
Engineering: $600,000
Total Cost: $12 million 
______

Start Date
February 1996
______

Completion Date
May 2001

Scope

Gilshey Branch is a tributary to the Peace River at a Central Florida surface mining operation. The mine operator, The Mosaic Company, tasked BCI to design a complete reconstruction of 4.3 miles of natural stream channel, its roughly three square mile basin, and the surficial aquifer system from the available loamy mine spoil and sand tailings. BCI also provided hydrogeomorphic design of 400 acres of floodplain forest, freshwater marsh and wet prairie.

The design involved establishing a detailed post-reclamation grade plan for the stream, its floodplain, and basin. Successful restoration hinged on creative subsurface configurations of the texturally variable mine reclamation materials to create a functional lithology that controlled groundwater flow and hydraulic head from the created wetland communities while allowing seepage to reach the stream channel as baseflow at the pre-disturbance duration.