This reach of Falling Spring, located with the town limits of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was plagued by wide slow flats with little or no in-stream habitat. Two landowners had asked the Falling Spring Chapter of Trout Unlimited for help in stabilizing the banks and improving habitat for trout. Although a spring creek, the reach had to handle stormwater runoff from extensive impervious surfaces draining the eastern third of the city of Chambersburg. Members of the chapter approached Ecotone to develop a restoration plan for the reach. Ecotone included the City of Chambersburg reach in a grant proposal they developed for the Falling Spring Greenway, Inc. which was submitted to Pennsylvania’s Growing Greener Program in 2002.

The grant proposal was awarded to the Falling Spring Greenway, Inc. in 2002 and funded design, permitting, construction, and monitoring of the project. Ecotone developed a design which provided additional in-stream structure and habitat, decreased the overall width of the channel, increased the overall depth, and engineered the structures to withstand high flows from stormwater runoff. Lunker structures were incorporated into the design to provide overhead cover adjacent to feeding lanes. A series of converging rock clusters and converging roller eddies were strategically designed to provide diverse velocity isovels for high quality feeding lanes. A series of boulder clusters and pinch points were installed to direct flows into the lunker structures and create diverse in-stream habitat.

The project was constructed in the summer of 2006. A total of 750 linear feet of channel was reconstructed. The project site was monitored for a period two years after construction. The reach now holds numerous large brown and rainbow trout. Many of the larger trout utilize the protection cover provided by the bank-side lunker structures. The reach continues to fish very productively and is a favorite of many local and visiting anglers.