India, Nov. 1 -- Anyone who's seen a street flood after a heavy storm knows just how quickly water can move when it has nowhere to go. That was the problem with a small Vermont creek for decades. The fix began with taking something out. According to the Vermont Land Trust, a dairy farmer in Colchester built an earthen dam in the early 1950s to create an irrigation pond. The pond gave the farm a way to hold water for irrigation. But over time, the dam altered the creek's flow, impacting water quality, wildlife habitat, and the lake fed by the creek.

Below the dam, the valley floor was treeless pastureland, and the cows tramped down the soil as they wandered. The water flowed down from the dam's outlet pipe each year, eroding the creek mor...