[permaculture] Creek remediation

David david at h4c.org
Sun Dec 16 18:01:30 EST 2007



Friends,

A small creek (which has a very, very low flow in the summer) runs 
through the northern part of my farm, and as part of the transformation 
of the property from land into a sustainable, organic (insert several 
other terms here) farm, I am considering what to do about this creek. 
(In deference to the list, I should probably say "permaculture" or 
polyculture farm, but frankly I'm too much of a novice, in my view, to 
warrant the use of such terms just yet. I'm working on it.)

The creek is fed from a watershed of a couple of hundred to a thousand 
acres to the west and south. For decades, this land has been under 
conventional ag, with a very large commercial nursery covering most of 
the ground, and 90 acres with a corn, corn, corn rotation between me and 
the nursery. Recently the 90 acres was purchased by a company that will 
be using it as part of an organic dairy (albeit conventional, USDA 
compliant), and in the last four months, they tore out the clay drainage 
pipe which was most of what existed of the creek upstream of me and 
across that property. They are in the process of restoring the swale and 
creek bed, according to a plan they have developed. There will still be 
drainage from the nursery feeding the creek, but before it gets to me it 
will pass across the 90 acres where I hope some natural remediation 
(cleansing) will improve the water quality. (I checked it yesterday and 
it's running pretty clear, not muddy.) The organic dairy has no plans 
that I know of to engage in deliberate remediation for improved water 
quality, and they don't ask me what to do next, so there is no 
particular reason to suppose they would listen to any suggestions I 
might have for what they "should do" on their own land.

The thing I've been wondering about is what I should or might do in the 
new circumstances about cleansing and restoring the life of the creek, 
and folding it into the property plan (11 acres tillable, 7 acres woods, 
2 acres pasture, more or less). Its got a muddy bottom, and is for the 
most part lifeless, as its history would imply. I am sure that a good 
deal of fertilizer and pesticide runoff has been trapped in the mud over 
the years. The land across which it runs has a slight slope.

First, with regard to remediation, what options are available? I ran 
across some references such as this one 
<http://www.envismadrasuniv.org/pdf/Bioaugmentation.pdf> or this one 
<http://www.bashanfoundation.org/michael/michaelbioremediation.pdf>, as 
well as some others. (I'm just starting my research on this, but if I 
find something really useful, I will mention it on the list.) In spite 
of the potential merits of commercial options, I would prefer to use 
"found" materials and methods. Any suggestions for materials or 
information sources? Relevant experiences?

With regard to life, it seems to me that I have the option of selecting 
plants and also of building a dam to create a pond, but I don't want to 
introduce expansive "non-natives", for example, and I would prefer to 
use plants (or animals for that matter) that meet as many needs as 
possible, increase diversity, etc. Again, suggestions? My part of the 
Willamette Valley appears now to be in USDA Zone 6 (previously in 7), 
with those zones marching northward in recent decades.



I would also mention that the completebiogas 
<http://www.completebiogas.com> site is now up, and it offers eight of 
the seventy-two chapters and appendices as free downloads. Two (or more) 
may be of interest to members of this list. The two I would suggest are 
Chapter 18, "On Growing Substrates", and Appendix 3, "Agricultural Use 
of Effluent", linked to the table of contents page. Enjoy.



d.

-- 
David William House
	503-678-5162 (home)
	503-206-1001 (cell)
      "Make no search for water.   But find thirst,
      And water from the very ground will burst."
             (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in Delight of Hearts, p. 77)




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