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Brentwood Bound

Brentwood Bound Project

The Brentwood Bound Plan is a comprehensive solution to overcome flooding and public safety challenges presented by the Deer Creek channel and to improve the Manchester Road corridor within the City of Brentwood. 

Great Rivers Habitat Alliance with support of the Fox Family Foundation is proud to partner with the City of Brentwood in their Brentwood Bound Plan and Deer Creek Flood Mitigation project. The Greg Fox Memorial Wetland will be part of this forward-thinking project, which will use topography and native plants to collect storm water during rain events, helping prevent flooding, cycle nutrients, store carbon and provide food, water and shelter for fish, mammals, amphibians, birds and insects. Native Missouri plants will be carefully chosen and used to help clean water traveling through the wetland on its way to Deer Creek and increase the beauty and experience of trail and park users. Great Rivers Habitat Alliance is also looking to raise additional money to support a second wetland restoration effort next to the METRO-Brentwood Facility.

 

The Brentwood Bound and Deer Creek Flood Mitigation Story

Flooding has long plagued the area along Deer Creek between Hanley Road and South Brentwood Boulevard, with 26 floods since 1957 causing significant public safety issues and property damage. Flooding issues along Deer Creek have, at times, crippled the Brentwood community and caused great challenges for friends and families.

Twenty-two towns feed the Deer Creek watershed floodwater, and faced with this continued flooding problem the City of Brentwood could have pushed its problems on “down the river” as they say. They could have raised levees and made that flooding problem someone else’s. But they did not.

The Mayor and Board of Aldermen, instead, developed and approved the Brentwood Bound Plan to overcome some of the community’s long-term challenges and revitalize the Manchester Road corridor, in Brentwood. It is an innovative approach that ultimately solves the flooding issues while benefiting the environment, clean water, clean air, wildlife and people.  The plan will also increase property values and the city’s bank account.

  

Proposed Metro Wetland sight.                                                                                             Great Rivers Greenway Connector groundbreaking April 28, 2022

A moratorium on building in this area was implemented while the city developed a plan. Business properties that were continually subject to flooding were bought out. An innovative team of engineers, city planners, parks employees and partners came together to resolve the issues.

The flood mitigation component of Brentwood Bound includes improvements to the Deer Creek watershed that will create more flow capacity along the creek to alleviate frequent widespread flooding and provide new opportunities for businesses in the area. Improvements to the location include streambank stabilization, native vegetation planting, floodwater storage, and natural floodplain restoration (with benching, widening and wetland restoration). The Deer Creek floodplain will be restored to adequately mitigate the flooding in the project area for 100-year flood events.

Brentwood Bound will quickly benefit citizens through enhanced public safety, revitalization of an underutilized area creating opportunity for development of the Manchester Road corridor, and a 40-acre natural green area to be enjoyed by wildlife and people alike.

The benefits will also be felt financially with reduced emergency response, reduced flood clean-up costs, a reduction in the number of flood-prone properties, increased taxable revenue, and increased property values.

Floodplain management such as this is a win-win for everyone and everything!

Great Rivers Habitat Alliance and the Fox Family Foundation are proud to partner with the City of Brentwood in this type of thoughtful floodplain management and applaud them for doing the right thing. We only wish other communities would take note of their example and follow their successes.

Deer Creek Flood Mitigation

This project includes improvements to Deer Creek that will create more flow capacity along the creek to alleviate frequent widespread flooding, including streambank stabilization, natural floodplain restoration and native vegetation planning.

Overview | Brentwood, MO - Official Website (brentwoodmo.org)

 

Our Conservation Programs

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Foster Rollins Conservation and Education Area
Foster Rollins Conservation And Education Area

In 2022, Great Rivers Habitat Alliance embarked on an exciting new venture to protect more than 181 acres of floodplain habitat along the Mississippi River and create what we will call the GRHA  Foster-Rollins Floodplain Conservation and Education Area. The property is just south of St. Louis and adjoining Cliff Cave County Park and Marions Place. The property is now the largest currently owned by GRHA. That journey took another step when GRHA closed on the property on April 11, 2024.

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DU EasementProgram Partnership
DU Easement Program Partnership

GRHA Partners with Ducks Unlimited in many ways including the DU Conservation Easement Program. GRHA partners in the Conservation Easement Program increase the uptake of private conservation easements by providing landowners financial support during the due diligence process and by promoting the overall program. These easements preserve the land in perpetuity, with a goal of eventually assembling enough parcels to effectively create a wall of protection against commercial development in the Confluence.

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Missouri Big Rivers Initiative
Missouri Big Rivers Initiative

GRHA partners with Ducks Unlimited and other partners on projects addressing wetland loss and flooding within the Confluence through DU’s Big Rivers Initiative -Missouri. The Confluence of the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers is North America’s greatest floodplain forming a unique wetland system known as the Confluence Floodplain. This region carries waters from over half of the United States landscape and serves vital ecological functions such as storage and purification of floodwaters.

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Brentwood Bound
Brentwood Bound Project

The Brentwood Bound Plan is a comprehensive solution to overcome flooding and public safety challenges presented by the Deer Creek channel and to improve the Manchester Road corridor within the City of Brentwood. Great Rivers Habitat Alliance with support of the Fox Family Foundation is proud to partner with the City of Brentwood in their Brentwood Bound Plan and Deer Creek Flood Mitigation project.

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Missouri Agricultural Wetlands Initiative Partnership
Missouri Agricultural Wetlands Initiative Partnership

GRHA continues its strategy of partnerships to protect the Confluence through programs such as the Missouri Agriculture Wetlands Initiative, which delivers coordinated private land conservation in the Confluence. GRHA is proud to join the Missouri Agricultural Wetland Initiative (MAWI) Partnership and will support the partnership through an annual gift restricted to projects in the 3 county areas of Lincoln, Pike and St. Charles.

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Wisconsin Big Rivers Initiative
Wisconsin Big Rivers Initiative

Great Rivers Habitat Alliance has made a commitment to partner with Wisconsin Ducks Unlimited and other partners to support Wisconsin’s Big Rivers Initiative. The Wisconsin Big Rivers Initiative focuses on the western two-thirds of the state that drains into the Mississippi River, down to the Confluence and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

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Revolving Lands Partnership
Revolving Lands Partnership

The Great Rivers Habitat Alliance is proposing the creation of a placed-based partnership designed to increase focus and achieve a shared vision of protecting the Confluence floodplain called the GRHA Revolving Lands Partnership.

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Great Rivers Environmental Law Center
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center

Great Rivers Environmental Law Center partners with Great Rivers Habitat Alliance by providing free legal services to protect the environment and public health. We work together through the courts and administrative agencies to safeguard the environment by enforcing environmental laws, especially air and water pollution laws and laws intended to protect wetlands, floodplains, open space, and endangered species.

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Policy Work
Policy Work

To address flooding, GRHA is working with local leadership to tackle the issue of floodplain rise and the filling of the floodplain and develop a regional approach for managing flood losses while protecting and restoring benefits of floodplains. We look to grow public awareness of the importance of the Confluence and provide a voice for landowners, agriculture, the duck clubs and Confluence hunters. GRHA will use policy and litigation to support our mission to directly combat the commercial development of the 100-year Confluence flood plain.

Supporters of the Easement Program

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Charlie Hager

President and COO for C. Hager & Sons Hinge Manufacturing Company

"It is vital to protect the critical migration habitat of Raccoon Ranch in perpetuity - especially as it relates to the abundant spring migration habitat on the property,” explained Charlie Hager, President and Chief Operating Officer for C. Hager & Sons Hinge Manufacturing Company. “The more of us in the Confluence who take the step to protect the wetland values of our property with a conservation easement the more we can insure that waterfowl will use the Confluence in the future.”

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Garth Fort

Dardenne Club member and chairman

Garth Fort, then Dardenne Club member and chairman of the club's easement committee said, “The 22-member club voted unanimously to protect Dardenne's natural wetlands with a conservation easement, and we all feel really good in doing so. It's the most important action the club has ever taken.”

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Steve Lohr

“We’re all stewards of the land. It’s our obligation and responsibility to preserve and protect this historical migration route, and that will require all ducks clubs, large and small, working together to conserve the wetland values of the Confluence. Maybe in 200 years someone will say, ‘These folks sure had some foresight!’”

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Bob Glarner

Pine LLC

"A donated easement was the best way to guarantee the long-term sustainability of the wetland habitat on the property."