Francis Ford Coppola Estate, Bear Canyon Creek, Rutherford, California
BioEngineering Associates, Inc. (BE) is a General Engineering Contractor Class A in California and a Commercial General Contractor Level 1 in Oregon.
We do it all for you:
- Assess the problem
- Prescribe a site appropriate repair design
- Obtain the necessary regulatory agency permits
- Construct the repair
- Monitor the project post construction
BE has solved problems as diverse as protecting the City of Seaside, Oregon’s wastewater treatment plant built on eroding sand dunes, to designing and constructing step pools to allow steelhead passage through a 130 year old dam on the Francis Ford Coppola estate in Rutherford, California. Bioengineering techniques can be applied to erosion problems along river and streambanks, gullies, and roads. In today’s regulatory environment, stream and river bank stabilization projects must have a heavy emphasis on restoring riparian vegetation and creating fish habitat. Our solutions not only solve the erosion problems that cause land and infrastructure loss but additionally will satisfy the increasing demand by the regulatory agencies for fisheries and riparian habitat to be a part of all river and stream bank stabilization projects.
1930’s bioengineering in North Carolina. Live willow brushlayer lifts support a road.
Bioengineering is a term used to describe several modern disciplines. However, its oldest usage by far has been to describe an ancient technology that in its purest form employs structures built of living plants whose primary purpose is to stabilize and revegetate damaged stream and river corridors and other landscape areas such as gullies and landslides where soil is being removed more rapidly than the natural systems can by themselves return the area to equilibrium.
Dr. Hugo Schiechtl, the great 20th century bioengineer, who chronicled and modernized the works of the bioengineers that preceded him has said, “On this earth there are only a few places where man has not altered the vegetation, where the natural cycles of growth, destruction, and regeneration remain unchanged. Man must learn to protect himself and his environment by calling in nature as his working partner.”
Evan Engber, BioEngineering Associate’s Chief Bioengineer and President, adheres to this approach. He believes that the natural world is our great teacher.
One in a lineage of practitioners who have mastered this technology, Mr. Engber has added to it, adapting its techniques to current conditions. Through improvements in the design of past techniques and in the use of new technical materials and mechanized equipment, he has pioneered the use of these techniques into the 21st century. It is especially important in this era as the status of recently listed endangered species requires limitations on invasive technology.
