Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 15:26:00 :
In Reply to: Re: O.T. Road grade question (no answer here) posted by derek on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 15:15:20 :
I agree about keeping the silt out of the creeks. Even though we don't have the regs here that they have in other places, I definitely make sure the roads drain well and drain into places where the water can soak into the ground. Most of the time when we get an extra heavy rain storm I patrol the whole 10 miles of forest service road from town to my place with a pick and shovel and clear the ditches and culverts, dig water bars, and so on in order to keep the erosion to a minimum. What's easier, spending a few hours in the rain diverting the water, or trying to get the government to put out a contract to grade the road and replace the culverts next year? Before I started doing it, a culvert would get clogged with brush and rocks and then the water would run over top of the road, or a stream would follow the wheel ruts for a mile down a road, and pretty soon you have a washed out road and a bunch of mud in the creek besides. You don't have to belong to the Sierra Club to appreciate that clean water is good. That also applies to what you do with used oil, solvents, etc. Anything that soaks into the ground ends up in the water eventually. In a big city in the desert somewhere, it probably doesn't matter, but in the mountains where the creek's nearby, it's worth a little effort to try to keep things clean.
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