That tain't a good report. Tis a very scary report.
There is a major housing development I drive past that was quite controversial and took years to get permits. The development has a small farm pond sitting above a major roadway. The road goes down into a valley with a creek and the pond is above the road. I have driven by this pond for years and I know what the pond looks like including water levels and quality.
After a period of very heavy rain the pond was flooded and looked like water was flowing over the top and the water was no longer clearish but full of silt. :shocked: I could not tell for sure as I drove by, it it looked like water might be seeping under the dam as well.
I called up the state department that manages dams and talked to one of the engineers. Never heard back from him.. But...
That pond level got drawn down ASAP, the top of the dam was cleaned up and they added some rip rap. :thumbsup: And while the engineer was out he noticed the huge run off and erosion problem that was happening. The runoff was filling up the creek with clay. The creek and soil around the creek is sand but the development is on clay and huge amounts of silt laden water flowed into that creek. The engineer had them clean that up to a good extent but I still see the water running off into the woods above the creek.
Someone has approved a very bad runoff plan or said plan is not being implemented and checked.
What really ticks me off about this whole mess is that this development took years to get approved. The company had to have spent a small fortune getting approvals and they are failing to notice and fix some really obvious problems. Its not like these problems are expensive to prevent in the first place or to fix if they occur. Certainly the record setting rain was unexpected but it was not rocket science to fix nor did it take Bill Gate's money to fix. Tis just stupid.
If that dam had failed a few people could have died and one of only three north south roads in a 10-15 mile stretch would have been closed causing massive traffic disruptions.
While water quality would have been impacted a bit, there is not much water in that pond to do much damage even with the load of silt it had but it would have been a public relations disaster both to the city that pushed for the development and the company. Just stupid for the situation to have developed in the first place.
Course, the people AGAINST the development have not said a word either. Surely they have people with eyes that can see what I saw but not a peep. While there is what I think a minimal impact to that stream I would have expected the groups against this development due to water quality impact would have a field day with what has been going on. The only thing I can figure is there is not longer any "profit" in it for them to talk about the development.:confused3:
Later,
Dan
