Drainage for wet area near the river

   / Drainage for wet area near the river #21  
bcp said:
Extreme accuracy isn't required.

A 48 inch level with a 1/2 inch spacer glued/taped to one end is close to 1%.

For a longer level, find a straight 1x2 75 inches long, on edge, with a 3/4 inch spacer on the end, and a short level taped to the center. Or 8ft with 1in spacer.

Bruce
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Accuracy needed depends on the job. On this one, existing concrete culverts at each end only allowed a total drop of one foot per 100 foot of run. So getting every bit of slope right was necessary. Doing that was easier than I thought, & the slope works well. Roots are now a bigger problem - & getting worse.
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river
  • Thread Starter
#22  
Certainly good information provided to me. I will try in the near future to get some measurements, depths etc. Could provide a photo but really do not know how to do that and my flip phone does not take very good photos.
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river #23  
I have a similar area on my land that's next to a creek. It's impossible to drive anything in that area from winter to the middle of summer. I would have to wait until August to mow that area, and even then, I've managed to get stuck.

After a good mowing, I saw that it wasn't totally flat, and there was an area that was lower then the rest of it that held water longer then the rest of it. I dug a trench to the creek to drain the water and installed three 12 inch plastic culverts. This solved the majority of the problem. It's still wet in the Spring, but now it dries out by May, and I can mow it with the rest of my place.

I dug a test hole with my backhoe in that area in the summer that was about six feet deep. Water started flowing into it pretty quickly. By the time I had a 8x8 foot wide hole dug, the water had filled up that hole to about 2 feet below the surrounding ground. It stayed like that all summer long, butt then collapsed on itself over the winter. I believe my water table is just 2 feet deep in that area.

I might put another pond there, but I haven't done anything since that test hole. My goal is to have more pasture for livestock, so there isn't a need for another pond right now.
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river #24  
Flood plains often have a minor 'dune' near the water, and then a lower area towards the back, before grades rise again, leading out of the flood plain. You can't stop the flooding with any reasonable effort/expense, but by allowing water to escape quickly post flood, you reduce the saturation.
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river
  • Thread Starter
#25  
I do not know if this helps but here goes. The river is quite low now, maybe 6 inches to 1 foot deep. The river bank edge is about 7 feet above the river now but during floods it goes out of the banks.
The area that I would like to drain I dug down with a manual hand held rotary post hole digger. Hit water less than a foot down, dug down 2 to 2.5 feet. The water quickly filled the hole to within 8 inches of ground level. Hope that helps define the area.
I took some photos with my old flip phone, not really sure if they would help and I do not know how to post them in any event.
The ground is relatively flat with little if any slope to the river but tiling could exit above the river water at this time. In the flood the hard pvc pipe projecting would be under water but could be angled away from the flow. Would hate to have that ground erode away in the next flood if I would do any water drainage project.
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river #26  
Good information. Sounds to me, like some ditches, maybe 18" deep, sloping 2% towards the river, maybe ever 30 ft, will allow some of this area to drain. Won't be perfect, but I Think that's the cheap/easy approach. If it does work well, and later you want to install tile, then you can, but thats an expensive proposition before you have proof of concept
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river #27  
Another option, totally different approach, a remote controlled tracked drone mower? Don't know what they cost, and almost exclusively see them for road row slope mowing, and a guy on a SxS with the remote
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river #28  
Last I looked they started at $40,000
 
   / Drainage for wet area near the river #30  
paulsharvey said:
No idea on quality, but I saw them from $3700 up on amazon.
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I was looking at a company I believe called Spyder. They were big remote controlled and tracked machines, marketed to the government. I'm not really in the market, but I'll take a look at what is on Amazon.
 
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