The ties that bind them: Regulatory ecologists pursue fly-fishing passion

Marcangeli and Marissa Merriman are both St. Paul District regulatory ecologists, and they have something else in common —a love for fly fishing.

April Marcangeli

Growing up in Oklahoma, Marcangeli was not around fly fishing, but she was around water. With a pond and a creek on their 10 acres, Marcangeli spent a lot of time playing outside in the water, turning over rocks and collecting crayfish, mussels and fish for hours at a time. This passion for aquatic resources and nature was translated into college where she majored in biology. However, once out of college, she didn’t know what she wanted to do and pursued a job at the state crime lab in Oklahoma; often finding herself wishing she was outside.

She quit the lab and followed her partner to Lawrence, Kansas, where she started a job with the University of Kansas as a research assistant studying population genetics in minnows. She would electrofish (temporarily stun fish with an electric current) streams in Kansas all day long. “It was hard work, but it was the greatest thing ever. It opened up doors for me to say, ‘maybe this is what I want to do,’” she said. She worked for the state of Kansas collecting water quality samples for streams and then with the Nature Conservancy doing stream assessments in California, before she went to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

At the Wisconsin DNR, Marcangeli was introduced to wetland permitting, which provided long-term stability over the seasonal work she had been doing. Eventually, a position with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, opened up and Marcangeli began as a project manager in 2016. Marcangeli, who also served as the utility liaison, began as a regulatory ecologist in March 2022. She works primarily in the technical services section and serves as the point of contact and subject matter expert for Quantification Tool.

“My background is in biology, so I’ve always been fascinated by the biological life within streams,” she said. “You never really know what you’re going to find below the surface.”

Marcangeli found fly fishing as a COVID-19 hobby. She had never done fly fishing and “wasn’t really around it.” More opportunities for fly fishing opened up for her when she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, with more access to trout streams in the driftless area.

“I thought to myself, ‘that looks pretty cool,’” she said. “I learned how to tie and to get materials to tie.”

Marcangeli explained you can use materials like deer hair and different colors and types of feathers. “You use things that look like a fly or bug in the water, so you need to know what the different life stages look like — from the larval stage under rocks to ones that emerge, fly around and land on the surface of the water.”

“You create these ‘flies’ as a lure when you’re fishing, you don’t use real bugs,” she clarified. “You hook it like a regular fish and then because of the angle of the rod, sometimes you are right next to the water and it’s easier to pull fish up with the net.”

“In tying you need an understanding of the bugs out there. This is where biology connected to my hobby. When you tie your own fly and you catch something with that, it’s awesome,” Marcangeli concluded.

Marissa Merriman

Merriman grew up fly fishing with her dad in southeastern Minnesota. Near Rochester is the heart of the Driftless Region, named for its geology and filled with spring-fed creeks. Merriman said that fishing with her dad sparked her interest in natural resources that led to her career path as a wetland stream ecologist.

Merriman began with the St. Paul District in 2010 as a student in the Student Career Experience Program in the recreation and natural resources branch in La Crescent, Minnesota. She worked for USACE while a student at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point and graduated with her degree in forestry and wetland science in 2012.

Out of college, Merriman was hired into the regulatory division as an environmental protection technician and spent 1.5 years in that position before becoming a field biologist doing wetland and stream delineation and habitat surveys for an energy client. That position led to a permanent job as a natural resources consultant.

Eventually, Merriman came back to USACE as a project manager and lead project manager from 2016-2021 and then became a regulatory ecologist in 2021, which she describes as her “dream job.”

As a regulatory ecologist, Merriman reviews wetland and stream mitigation bank proposals and monitors them to ensure the projects are ecologically successful according to the criteria. Merriman also teaches wetland delineation for the University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. She is also a regional instructor for wetland delineation.

“Now that we’re standing up our stream program, it’s cool to see how much it’s evolving and we’re learning.” Merriman said. “How they design and develop the components of these restoration projects to achieve those goals supports macroinvertebrates and fish for fly fishing.”

Merriman has served on the board of the Fly Fishing of Minnesota Women since 2019 and served as the president of the board in 2025. The Twin Cities-based group strives to make fly fishing more welcoming and less intimidating for women, she said.

“It’s a lifelong sport and you are always learning something new,” she said. “I love a good challenge and it’s great mentally when you can’t turn your brain off. You are analyzing water flow patterns and what bugs might be flying around. It gets you out of your head and into problem-solving mode. It keeps you active and in nature.”

The stream program evaluates mitigation projects focused on stream restoration, reflecting on the commitment to species conservation found within the fly-fishing culture. “It’s my job to make a difference on a regional scale with our mission of no let loss of aquatic resources and aquatic functions,” Merriman said. “I am ensuring future generations, like my daughter, can continue to have these beautiful resources and continue the sport of fly fishing,” she added.

Merriman lives in River Falls, Wisconsin, with her family. “We have a stream behind the house and spend lots of time looking at cool bugs in the stream. I couldn’t think of a better childhood for my daughter to experience.”

Stream Program

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulates the discharge of dredged and fill material into Waters of the U.S. under the Clean Water Act. The purpose of USACE’s regulatory program is to protect the nation's aquatic resources, while allowing reasonable development through fair, flexible and balanced permit decisions.

Consistent with the goal of “no net loss of aquatic resources,” USACE may require a property owner to replace the loss of existing aquatic resource functions from a project through compensatory mitigation. Compensatory mitigation is therestoration, establishment, enhancement, and/or in certain circumstancespreservationof aquatic resources for the purpose of offsetting impacts which remain when a permittee has more than minimal loss on the impact side.

One way to mitigate that loss is to purchase credits from a mitigation bank. A mitigation bank establishes the site and quantifies the functions.

The stream procedures, put forth in St. Paul District in 2023, discuss the Stream Quantification Tool and how it is used to quantify credits and debits for permitting. Before the stream procedures, stream mitigation was based on best professional judgment and was not an accurate way to offset the loss of function.

The tool quantifies a change in various functions for a stream restoration/mitigation proposal. “This allows for stream mitigation to more accurately replace those functions that were lost through a permitted project with adverse stream impacts,” said April Marcangeli, regulatory ecologist.

“Streams are dynamic and are constantly changing due to fluctuating flows and the movement of sediment. Benefits of streams include protection against flooding, filtering of pollutants and providing food and habitat for macroinvertebrates and fish,” she added.

The Stream Quantification Tool is based off a hierarchical pyramid with geology and climate influencing hydrology (the bottom), hydraulics, geomorphology (the form of the stream or stream type), physiochemical (restoration outcome), and biology (the top). “We have to address the things at the bottom of the pyramid first,” said Marissa Merriman, regulatory ecologist. “This is how we form the basis of the SQT and stream mitigation.”

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