The Annual Erosion Control Issue . . .

This is for all of you who have started a project in the fall or winter and right in the middle, yea before all of your erosion control elements were put in place, an unseasonable rain hit the project causing great havoc . . .

Just a couple of weeks ago, we started a landscape project at our house where we put in a three foot retaining wall, leveled off a 6,000 sq ft pad around the new pool and were getting ready to put down gopher wire before the sod went in.

We had done some minor grading to the west slope in the summer, planted a bunch of fruit trees, set up a vegetable garden, terraced the southern one-third of the slope and installed irrigation for that part. However, the remaining two-thirds were left un-terraced and mostly un-irrigated.

Our plan was to finish the retaining wall, install the drainage, install the irrigation, lay the sod and hydroseed the slope. Normally in Southern California our October rainfall is well under an inch, many times nonexistent . . . In a normal year the seed would have been shot and had two full months to set root before the rains began in January/February . . .

In steps Murphy . . . Around the same time that The Weather Channel started to mention the words ?EUR??,,????'??mild el ni?????o?EUR??,,????'?? it started to rain . . . By the end of the first day we had exceeded the monthly average by more than an inch. By the end of the third day we had more than six inches of rain on our property and the valley in which I live was under siege.

So . . . Where the terracing was the slope remained fairly stable. Sure there was a little run-off but the terraces drained as planned and the vegetables held their roots. The un-terraced part however was a lesson in rill erosion . . .

There is a V-ditch that cuts the slope in half and from the beginning of the un-terraced slope to its end at the driveway it was completely full of mud. That same mud was slowed a bit by a few rocks but pretty well continued on its path down the driveway, onto the street, down to the main drain. There it plugged the drain, causing water and mud to fill the street and overflow into the neighbor?EUR??,,????'???s backyard . . . Oh Joy . . .

Fortunately for us the neighbor?EUR??,,????'???s back yard was a horse stable and the overflow actually, according to them, cleaned out the stable, left a flat smooth surface of sandy dirt (perfect for horses) and ended up draining to the river . . . Whew . . .

The next day the city was out in the valley bulldozing dirt from almost every property, who, like us, where taken by surprise by the early and torrential downpour . . . But should we have been surprised by Mother Nature or should we have anticipated her? The answer, of course, is the latter. As my mentor, Donald M Roberts, FASLA once said, ?EUR??,,????'??Water is a terrible force that must be planned for and anticipated.?EUR??,,????'??

I have learned this lesson and now know that erosion will happen to unprotected areas. I?EUR??,,????'???ve also learned that the cost to clean up the mess can be much more than the cost to prevent it.

I hope this issue and advice is helpful in your planning and projects . . .

- God Bless . . .

- George Schmok, Publisher