Deep Fissures

... looking up to the main curve in the road ...

April 28, 2014

On the way home from the opera Moiya drove slowly along Pilling’s Road, showing me where the three culverts are on that stretch.

I know the one by the drop off that we call Moose Pees in Stream.

That is the place where Bonnie and David stopped one day to watch a moose forage and drink water.

One of the other culverts couldn’t take all of the water that was driving down the side of the road and so it travelled on down to the culvert that empties into the stream by my place.

white pipe taking overflow from full culvert
... helping the water get across the road  ...

I was thinking that the culvert had been plugged up because I should have gone in and emptied out the silt around it, but Dave Wood said no.

 ... Greg straightening the plastic ...

They could hear the rocks pounds in the culvert as they were carried along by the strength of the water. By the time I got out here, Dave, Graham and Glen has spent a long time unplugging that culvert so that the water could run freely through it again.

...looking down the fissure ...

I think the debris they took out is 3 feet high and six feet long.

Every time I take a shovel full of it now, to carry it away so that the area can be mowed this summer, I think of all of the work those guys did, getting it out of the water.

A bigger worry is the two fissures in the road.

The Pig Roast cinder-blocks
being put to good use to contain the water.

I walked off the one that begins by the culvert at the curve in the road as you round the cover at my house.

Thirty paces.

The one that is further down the road, in front of Moiya’s and Wyona’s is even longer.

Dave's truck parked at bottom of Missionary Reach

The CPR came out on Friday to see what they could do, but they have no equipment that they can divert here and the work that has to be done can only be done when the ground is dry.

No one of us wants that part of the hill to slide – not LaRue and not the CPR. Rob (Bobcat Rob) ditched the road right by the hill and Glen and Dave lined it with plastic.

Dave pounding rebar into south side of hill

Sunday I noticed that the stream had pooled just at the bottom of the Missionary Reach and was spilling over onto the plastic lining and moving about half-way down it.

I went back up to the top to check again and the water seemed to be coming faster. Indeed, on my second look the water was now off the plastic and running down the ditching that had been done.

... now is not the time to miss the nail ...

I walked up to tell Dave and though he wasn’t home, he did arrive an hour later.

By now it was raining. I saw his truck at the bottom of the hill and him running back up to the truck.

... plastic lines the culvert ...
rocks hold the plastic down

The rain was mixed with pellets of snow.

Dave thought he should get another couple of plastic rolls to lay in the ditches that were now filling so he made a quick trip into Parkland Building Supplies where he also got come rebar to hold the plastic into the south side of the hill.

So, we are all asking the question, why is this happening?

Is it because of the clear cut above us and the water no longer being held on the hill as it was in times past.

 ...Arta picking up rocks, only the size she can heave ...

A second theory is that the hill has been compromised down by the track with too much water.

That is why there is a fissure above, on the road,.

Perhaps the land above is now unable to be supported because it is so wet at the bottom of the hill.

 ... a pause for a candid ...
Dave now out of his Sunday Suit and into work clothes
Greg in his burning the trash outfit.
Arta wearing C.I.A.U Women's Basketball Championship "88 t-shirt

At any rate, the plastic in the ditch is to stop the water from soaking into the hill, thus making the fissure grow bigger.

We are scientific.

I was trying to measure how deep the fissure is with the empty tube from the plastic.

I thought four feet, perpendicularly.

Dave measures it horizontally, putting his boot in at the same place every time.

He thought it had opened up another couple of inches.

Arta