Printed in the Mendocino County Observer & aired on KZYX&Z Community News, by Clare Nunamaker
It's a good time, now that we've had some rain, to sruvey your roads to make sure they are draining properly. The best way is to walk the roads, looking at culverts, ditches, and road surface drainage. If your road is too long to walk, then drive it, getting out at all the culvert crossings and other places you think there might possibly be drainage issues. If you have an ATV, use that, as you'll see a lot more than if you're in a truck.
Here are a few things to look for:
1. Culverts. Check the inlets and outlets to make sure water can flow freely into and out of the pipe. Look down the pipe to make sure there aren't rocks or branches stuck inside of it (if there are, try to get them out, though granted sometimes that can be a challenge). Make sure the pipe itself is in good condition and not rusted through. Also note whether or not the culvert has a "fail-safe" design. This means that, when the culvert eventually fails, water will flow over where the pipe is now, and not down the road.
2. Ditches. Check to make sure water can flow freely through ditches. Where water drops off, for example where an inside ditch feeds into a culvert intake, make sure the last part of the ditch has rock "armor" or other hard substance to prevent soil erosion. Without such armoring, a lot of erosion can occur.
3. Road surface drainage. There should be cross-drains (rolling dips, waterbars, or culverts) at regular intervals so that water doesn't accumulate and run down the middle of the road. Check the outlets of the cross-drains to make sure that water flowing off the road isn't eroding the road edge or, in the case of culvert, eroding underneath the edge of the road itself.
The very best time to check your road drainage is when it's raining and you can really see what the water is doing. That's the way to catch even very small problems before they become big ones.
Whenever you survey your roads, take a shovel and other hand tools, and fix whatever problems you can as you go. The work you do now to prevent erosion problems will be well worth the effort.
Clare Nunamaker is a Registered Professional Forester and member of NorCal SAF, CLFA, and the Forest Stewards Guild.
