Surely 2006 would be included in the growing trend of devastating weather patterns evolving from global warming. How would America handle the renewed assault on our homeland terra firma? Surely President Bush would be at fault and the world as we know it would never be the same . . .

That is, of course until the hurricane season arrived and whadda ya know . . . No hurricanes?!? However, we are not out of the woods. Now they are saying the reason the hurricanes didn?EUR??,,????'???t hit us is that the almost-equally-destructive forces of our little nephew, El Ni?????o, are on its way.

Either way . . . Hurricanes or El Ni?????o . . . A lot of wind and water are destined to cover the land. That is why LCN annually focuses at least one publication on the issues of Erosion Control.

The big lesson in all of this is that while we can expect Mother Nature to deliver her wrath, we really can?EUR??,,????'???t pin her down as to the when, where and how of it all. That makes your job all the more important and all the more perplexing.

Erosion Control costs a lot of money and consumes a lot of construction energy.

If you have followed this column over the past couple of years, you have read about my home construction project. Today, they are compacting 10 inches of base on my 200-ft.-long, 20-degree driveway. This is after we installed 250 feet of 6-inch drainage pipes (connected to at least a dozen 12×12-inch grates), 280 feet of concrete v-ditch, hundreds of feet of retaining walls (all backed with the proper amounts of gravel, sand and ADS piping), 400-plus feet of 4-inch pipe with dozens of 4-inch flat and pop-up drainage grates, all directing the expected water towards a rip rapped French-type drain that measures 15 ft. long, by 8-ft. wide by 4-ft. deep. After the water fills that element it will gracefully overflow along the neighbor?EUR??,,????'???s uncurbed lawn border into a storm drain headed for the ocean.

All that for only one small house on one small hill!

Ironically, the past two years were two of the wettest years in Southern California history. Of course, we were in full construction during those wet years . . . Sand bag, hay bale and coir logs have a permanent place in the album . . . But since this year is predicted to be an El Ni?????o year we probably are entering a drought . . .

Still, the hundred-year flood can always be followed by the thousand-year flood and as most of you know, if it is going to hit, it will hit the day after they finish grading. So just because the 2006 hurricane season didn?EUR??,,????'???t deliver the follow up to Katrina, these past few years have amplified the need to pay the piper and pay attention to the flow of water in and around your projects. Form follows function and it is best to remember that Mother Nature demands attention . . .

God Bless