Sometimes small steps can springboard into leaps. Removing an old, forgotten and collapsed bridge in a small foothills stream and restoring habitat features could be just the little nudge needed to encourage the recovery of the threatened Westslope cutthroat trout population in Allison Creek in the Crowsnest Pass area of southern Alberta.

On May 31, 1940, more than a year before the U.S. entered World War II, Manufacturers Light and Heat Company purchased nine acres of land along Connoquenessing Creek in Ellwood City, Pa., around 40 miles north of its Pittsburgh headquarters.  The plan was to build a 1,000-hp compressor station to support the expansion of two nearby natural gas pipelines. Market demand in the region was growing fast, and the company needed to keep up. As it turned out, the project couldn’t have come at a better time: By the end of 1945, the station’s horsepower had doubled, and a post-war economic boom was on the horizon.