Highways and Heelsplitters: Improving Quality of Life for Citizens and the Environment

About the Program

Category: Transportation (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

In February, 2010, Lancaster County Council held an Emergency meeting to discuss the continued and significant flooding along the Gills Creek basin. The County had continuous problems with flooding along the roads around the Gills Creek basin during heavy rainfalls due to undersized pipes in the culverts. During flooding events, the roadways were impassable for residents and emergency vehicles, since some roads had no available alternative road access. Permanent solutions for fixing the culverts were complicated by the 2002 designation of Gills Creek as a critical habitat for the Carolina Heelsplitter, which has been on the endangered species list since 1993. Due to another significant flooding event in 2012, the County was inspired to work cooperatively with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to install bottomless culverts, which eliminated the flooding of the roads along the Gills Creek basin while also opening up over three miles of critical habitat for the Heelsplitter for the first time in at least a decade. The completion of the project in 2017 culminated in USFWS’s release of over 300 Carolina Heelsplitters into Gills Creek.