I live with a creek that runs the entire length of my property. Over the years, running water does what running water does and erodes land. Can the erosion be repaired, or at the very least can i prevent it from getting worse? Would any landscaping company have recommendations, or is this more of a job for an excavating company?
Any decent landscaping company should be able to make a retaining wall and fill in what land you’ve lost. Of course, the retaining wall will eventually erode, but depending on the volume of the stream and the quality of the wall (or a desire for a ‘natural’ look to it,) you may be eroded before you have to worry about it.
What BSPI said … awful hard to tell out here in inter-lala-land … sure does look like you need that capacity at times, and this is what a local landscaper would know that we imaginary peoples do not.
The first picture is lovely, I understand the need to control the erosion, but it’s a shame you have to do anything about it.
The first thing you should do is call your local government office responsible for regulating or managing the aquatic environment. Where I am the crown (govt) owns the bed and shore of all (ok most) watercourses and you can’t legally go in and start digging or altering it. They’d also be able to advise you on any sensitive aquatic species or hydrology issues in your area. Yours is a small creek and likely of little significance, but in my work we sometimes deal with people who repair/alter the bank of a bigger river adjacent to their land and change the hydraulics such that the current now erodes a downstream landowners property… lawsuits ensue and everyone loses.
All the legal stuff aside, I’d recommend you look for a more natural bank stabilization option rather than a hard engineering option. The gabians and riprap shown in the pictures can work, but generally needs to be designed so as to meet certain flood event levels and tends to involve excessive use of heavy equipment and results in ugly barren rocky banks. Perhaps not a concern to you, but such banks usually degrade the aquatic habitat by limiting channel migration, and reducing usable habitat for fish and other aquatic species. If you do choose to go this route, I’d advise you to talk to a hydraulic engineer rather than hire a general landscaping company or trying to design it yourself… flowing water can be very tricky to accurately predict and “home made” solutions often fail, even on small creeks.
I’d recommend looking for what’s referred to as a bioengineering solution; essentially using vegetation to both stabilize the bank mechanically and over time to establish a root system which will further stabilize the soil. Establishing a natural riparian zone is the best option, but of course that may not be practical given the amount of property you have. Bioengineered bank stabilization is also pretty low tech, and you can even do the job yourself; I’ve been involved in several such projects through my work.
This. Check with your county extension agent and get written approval. If you do any work without local government approval, you could be forced to undo everything you did, and possibly pay a fine. The creek may flow across your land, but you may not actually “own” it, nor the water rights.
Yeah, local laws can be a bitch. There’s a long-standing dispute about a drainage ditch/creek in my backyard. According to one interpretation of the facts, this creek means that even the house across the street from me must get written county permission just to cut a branch off a tree since they are 150 feet from the “protected wetland.”
Modifying the creek bed itself? Even people who club baby seals would be horrified at that kind of environmental disaster!
bob++ - many thanks to you on the term gabion. I’m in the process of finishing a koi pond in my backyard, and this kind of thing is exactly what I’m needing to build for part of it, I just didn’t have a name for it and was having trouble finding guides to help me build it.
US Army Corps of Engineers are (in)famous for paving every drop of water that might, at any time, even THINK of moving.
If you go the lawful route, yoou may end up in a nightmare, depending…
Anyway, my experience with small rivers is riprap - large rocks dumped along the exposed banks and a bit below.
Landscapers will know of this, but may not want to use it - it is a one-time expense, not a recurring money producer.
Any Civil Engineering shop can set you up. If they try to tell you that they MUST do a $20K survey and platt prep, find somebody to just give you a name.
Anyone with access to the stuff knows how to use it.
Thanks for the input, everyone. Much of the erosion in the last few years has been from snowmelt, not from the spring erupting and flooding the banks or anything serious like that. I’ll talk with landscaper and hopefully they will be familiar with which County Department will have to come out to inspect and approve any work.
For our lake’s shore erosion we hired Wetland Supply. It was not cheap, but they re-contoured the problematic area and put in riprap. Totally fixed the problem.