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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Creek remediation
  • Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:12:13 -0800

Ditto the beaver idea... aside from cottonwood, willow is a huge food plant. And food plant scarcity is an issue, with pond formation, food depletion, pond abandonment, food plant growth, pond formation being a documented cycle in some habitats. Frequently in marginal habitat (not enough water to maintain levels that allow for coyote protection...) yearling will come and go each in turn trying to make a living and either getting killed, moving on the better habitat, or returning to the extended family. Up in Puget Sound which is ecologically similar every lowland low gradient (flat) creek bottom had several dams per mile before colonization. The extermination of beaver has transformed the landscape and drastically modified the hydrology. And it is hard to just give back hard bought land to a tribe of intelligent rodents... it would be an even partnership, as the beaver clan doesn't take orders and they take their work very seriously.

Managing water on you land and your neighbors, so that you are storing it in the soil and catching it high will help groundwater recharge and summer base flow. Having your water run a tortuous path through soil before it emerges in the creek also helps the nutrient loading that is killing the downstream parts of our system. That kind of 'cleaning your hydro logic house' and rebuilding hydrologic function at the landscape scale is what our creeks really need.

Shading the channel reduces temperature increasing dissolved oxygen supporting life and downstream conditions.

On a gut level I would not be terrible concerned about remediation of specific toxins or nitrogen loading in the soil, beyond getting roots in the ground. Nitrogen is pretty mobile.

Given historical agricultural usage, it is the distinct possibility that your channel is a ditch, if not down-cut (as Rich mentioned). Finding someone who can talk geomorphology on site might be good... just to get an interpretation of the history and forces at work based on evidence (Rich's question about channel characteristics).

Rich's comment about what it was doing in the recent floods is important. Any assessment or design must consider 'channel forming' conditions. The most important stuff that happens in natural channels happens when its really dumping.

for native reveg, willow, ninebark, twinberry, dogwood, cottonwood, and others can all be grown using cuttings (live stakes). heres a local publication -- http://www.plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/pubs/orpmctn3859.pdf

From a general design view I would tend to manage bottom lands through a few foraging circuits, going after small fruits, osiers, poles, nettles, medicinals, some specialty timber, mushrooms and the like, while focusing on reforestation and natural structures and functions that protect aquatic system health.

Paul Cereghino
Olympia, WA
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David wrote:

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.



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