Dave H
Well-Known Member
Most of you know I have an affair with Haig-Brown's Kingfisher Creek and monitor it regularly all year around.
I've done this off and on since the creek was built in 1998/99 and encountered a number of things to deal with during those years but I was sure fooled this time.
The key to the East Branch of the creek lies in what's called a Bifurcation structure which was built in 1999 to turn good quality water from up around the golf course down into the channel that was engineered and constructed in 1998 rather than have it disappear down into the culverts that carry it underground all the way to the Campbell, where it empties out under Ed Enn's house, just down from River Sportsman.
Under high water flows it diverts as much as it can thru the hole down into the East branch and spills the rest into the overflow channel to the Campbell.
Like this:
That was Thursday afternoon just past.
I didn't check again until Sunday afternoon and this is what I found.
Not a drop getting thru to the correct channel and even with a much diminished flow it was all going the wrong way.
A large piece of wood had jammed in the hole sometime after I took the pic on Thursday and yesterday and that anchored the creation of a gravel, leaf and smaller wood bits dam that totally plugged up the hole.
I've never seen that before although I have seen stuff get jammed in the hole before.
Anyway I called one of the more hardworking unsung guys in small creek stuff from around here to give me a hand so this morning we hauled some tools in and dug it out so the flow was able to head off where it was supposed to go.
Here's Chuck hard at it clearing out on the downstream side.
Had to dig out quite a bit of gravel and silt on the upstream side of the wing-dam so most of the water under normal flows keeps going the right direction, as you can see. We had a busy morning.
Think global and act local.
Take care.
I've done this off and on since the creek was built in 1998/99 and encountered a number of things to deal with during those years but I was sure fooled this time.
The key to the East Branch of the creek lies in what's called a Bifurcation structure which was built in 1999 to turn good quality water from up around the golf course down into the channel that was engineered and constructed in 1998 rather than have it disappear down into the culverts that carry it underground all the way to the Campbell, where it empties out under Ed Enn's house, just down from River Sportsman.
Under high water flows it diverts as much as it can thru the hole down into the East branch and spills the rest into the overflow channel to the Campbell.
Like this:
That was Thursday afternoon just past.
I didn't check again until Sunday afternoon and this is what I found.
Not a drop getting thru to the correct channel and even with a much diminished flow it was all going the wrong way.
A large piece of wood had jammed in the hole sometime after I took the pic on Thursday and yesterday and that anchored the creation of a gravel, leaf and smaller wood bits dam that totally plugged up the hole.
I've never seen that before although I have seen stuff get jammed in the hole before.
Anyway I called one of the more hardworking unsung guys in small creek stuff from around here to give me a hand so this morning we hauled some tools in and dug it out so the flow was able to head off where it was supposed to go.
Here's Chuck hard at it clearing out on the downstream side.
Had to dig out quite a bit of gravel and silt on the upstream side of the wing-dam so most of the water under normal flows keeps going the right direction, as you can see. We had a busy morning.
Think global and act local.
Take care.
