Trees being cut down as part of construction of the $1.5 billion Hunter Expressway are being put to good use, improving the health of the Hunter River.

Roads and Maritime Services will transport almost 1000 logs from the project to be used as river snags at sites near Muswellbrook and Dalwood in the Upper Hunter.

Kylie Russell from the Department of Primary Industries the logs will be placed in the river to create important fish habitat and stabilise river banks.

“We make structures in the river called engineered log jams,” she said.

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“They’re basically big piles of logs put together in an engineered way to be able to withstand floods.

“They protect the river banks from erosion, but at the same time they provide fantastic fish habitat because a lot of this habitat has been removed from the river over the past decades.”

Ms Russell says the process is expensive and the donations from the Expressway project will significantly increase the area that can be rehabilitated.

She says over the past three years 34 engineered log jams have been installed in the Upper Hunter.