Dirty Weather: Dirty Water

| Flower Roberts

We had some strong storms pass through our area yesterday. Our power was out for hours. A tornado touched down in a little town across the river.

All that rain has to go somewhere. It either goes down in the ground or downhill. Now that so much vegetation has been removed, more is going downhill or downstream than ever before. We have a new stream along our driveway because there is a new house in the woods. A house has never been there before…ever.

Let me highlight that NEVER BEFORE. There are roads and houses where there were never, ever any before in the history of this land. Forests have been cleared here and replaced by neighborhoods and giant warehouses and business parks. Progress has a high price. I am not preaching. I am telling you what I am seeing with my own, old eyes.

The river gets water from every little creek along its banks. This water dumps into every cove. All that detritus and debris gets flushed into the river. It turns brown from silt and is covered with floating mess. Most of this is organic at this time. The trash comes from the lakes upstream as water flows over the dams. That is what is happening right now. We have witnessed empty boats and boathouses go by during past floods.

Some of this mess will move on downstream if the wind blows it away from shore. Some will get stuck and settle. This will have to be removed later.

I want to end this post with a picture of Mr. Flower assessing flooding at the farm. He is looking at acres underwater. He is wondering if his culvert pipes where we cross the creek are still intact somewhere under there. This is the worst its ever been you see. There is a big, new development upstream along with a huge new warehouse. More water is moving downhill and downstream than underground to that parched water table that needs to recharge from recent droughts.

He looks little standing there amidst all that water.

Our ugly prediction has come to fruition.

FLOW

18 thoughts on “Dirty Weather: Dirty Water”

  3. Yes, developers and their homes and strip malls are encroaching on every corner of America especially in small towns and beautiful forested areas. Even in our town we are for the first time seeing developers planning on building 7 storey condos!! In our little town! We have always had commercial buildings no more than 2 storeys so we can see the beautiful hills that surround our area. But now, we dont know if our beautiful town will stay as beautiful and pristine as it was.

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  6. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this in your neighborhood. So sad. Nearly every developer in our neck of the woods creates retention ponds so as to give displaced water a place to go. It helps a little, but not enough to make up for all the non-permeable surfaces they create.

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    1. This does help. I wish every developer was accountable for runoff water and tree replacement. Also building roads and schools for the extra students and traffic. A stiff delelopment tax would slow things down so adjustments could be made. Our town has been over run and outgrown.
      Not everything is bad. Projects need more forethought.

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  7. So sorry to see this happening in your part of the world too. We have similar situations in Germany (and locally) due to bad land and damn management and simply putting up buildings where they should never be.

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