Dave Andrews, right, talks to Pat Collodi about the renovations performed on Sullivan Run in Alameda Park at an educational event Thursday.

A few miles upstream from Butler, members of the Connoquenessing Watershed Alliance spent days earlier this year cutting down trees near Sullivan Run.

But instead of removing them from the stream, the workers actually left the felled trees in the stream, and dug holes underneath them to create a more efficient area of flow.

Dave Andrews, president of the Connoquenessing Watershed Alliance, said the work performed by the group has helped to reduce the potential severity of flooding that could be caused by the stream in the city. The alliance put in multiple buffers that slow the flow of water.

“That flooding in Butler would have been a lot worse if we didn't do this,” Andrews said. “We're trying to get water out of that really fast channel where it's narrow. It's going out in the flood plain, losing energy; it's hitting off brush and trees and it's slowing the water down.”

Read more in Friday's Butler Eagle.