Category Archive for ‘water’ at Beside the Stream

Archive for the 'water' Category

High water

Published on May 22, 2008 in Small town life and water. 2 Comments

The Animas flooded its banks today,

and with the high water I went to Smelter Rapids, the town’s best white water.

It was big water today, one of the highest flow days of the year. There was one kayaker out there, and maybe twenty people watching.

Can you see the joy?

The balancing of immense forces? This guy is likely Olympic caliber–there are a lot of world champion and Olympic kayakers living here

and I assumed everyone was there to watch his perfect form. Instead,

the main attraction was a group of four commercial rafts due at 2:15. Two rafts made it through intact, one raft lost and recovered a passenger, one raft flipped…

and it was really entertaining.

Beavers move in, Part 2

Published on May 16, 2008 in beaver and water. 1 Comment

We know that the beavers moved in because of their nighttime handiwork.

and it’s pretty easy to see where they’re staying. It’s a streamside burrow with two entrances that they live in until they build their dam, fill their pond and build a lodge. It’s their starter home.

The main entrance is right in front of you, made of peeled branches woven together.

The other side of the same pile shows a second entrance, while the beaver’s backdoor route is all the way over by the pile of peeled sticks at the far end of the bench of soil. There’s likely an underwater entrance on this end, and a series of underground rooms dug from here to that far pile.

This is the back door entrance on the far end of the bench, with an underwater entrance on the far end as well. The beaver’s first rule of home construction is: always have an alternate exit. Some animals fight off intruders, but beavers build a back door instead.

This pair is in a streamside burrow for now, but they have big plans. At night they’re consumed with construction problems, but during the day when they sleep they might dream of their dam and a litter of kits. Of the day when they have a proper lodge in their own pond.

This might be the beaver’s dream.

(This lovely illustration is from a book written by the Islamic scholar Harun Yahya titled Devotion Among Animals: revealing the work of God Ch.2 Awareness in Animals: One of the dead ends of the theory of evolution, Fig 5.) (I’ve gotten in trouble for using this illustration in lectures because people assume that I must renounce evolution to read antievolution tracts, but honestly, I’ll read anything.)

Beavers move in, Part 1

Published on May 14, 2008 in beaver and water. 5 Comments

A pair of beavers started engineering this area this spring. This is the view from one end of their clearing

and this is their clearing from the other end.

Without exception, all of the cottonwoods have been cut to fall at right angles to the river. I think at least 30 big trees–between one and two feet in diameter–have been cut here. There are hundreds of little trees gone, but you don’t notice them because they are taken away.

When they cut big trees, it’s a multi-step process.

First, they sit up on their hind legs and chisel their way around the base of the tree until it topples.

Then they go up to the top of the trees and trim off the branches from the top down.

Sometimes the tree doesn’t fall just the way they intended,

but mostly it goes exactly as planned.

This clear-cut is as deliberate as if someone cut this wood for a lumber mill (although since it’s cottonwood, no one would’ve bought it, and the beaver do a cleaner clear-cut than humans: they don’t leave slash piles that need to be burned).

When you consider that this is a project that likely a new pair started this spring, you can see that ”busy as a beaver” might be nothing but the truth.

I have a particular fondness for beavers. I am probably the only person you know who keeps a stuffed beaver in her bedroom

which is why you’ll hear more about beavers tomorrow.

An Act of God (Time: one month)

Published on May 7, 2008 in time and water. 2 Comments

In early April, this debris flow was liquid and the wall of the irrigation ditch was cut to allow the material to keep moving downhill.

A month later, the ditch wall is finally repaired, the ditch is filling, and there’s a plan. I got the scoop from an engineer who worked for the ditch company, which had come to an agreement with the landowner, the county and the Army Corps of Engineers.

This is the problem: a big chunk of the cliffs at the top of this mountain crashed down in 2001, leaving a huge pile of pulverized limestone hanging 1,000 feet above the road. It’s that upside-down triangle at the top of the mountain. This spring, millions of gallons of limestone and water slurry moved downhill, and the rest of the pile is expected to come down over the next ten years. There are four loose boulders up there that are as big as houses, and that is a problem. But they have a solution for the pile of pulverized limestone.

The ditch is going to be put in a culvert at this point, and wing dams will be built to funnel the slurry over the ditch and down through this orchard to the river. There’s no way to stop it and no way to move it, so the plan is to let it flow.

The pulverized limestone has dried to the consistency of cement, and both rows of apple trees will be dead before long. This debris flow is considered to be an Act of God, so the ditch company pays for the ditch work, the road department pays for keeping the road clear, and the landowner has to pay for the construction of a slurry channel through his land. I wasn’t clear on who pays for the wing dams, but it might be the Corps.

According to Wikipedia, ”an Act of God or act of nature is a legal term for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.” (attributed to Black’s Law Dictionary).

This debris flow is classified as an Act of God, but it sure looks like an Act of Gravity to me (no higher power required). If God was involved, perhaps it was that the limestone and water slurry was so liquid. If it had been thicker, said the engineer, it would have swept all the trees along with it, and then you woulda seen a mess.

Beside the Stream

Published on May 5, 2008 in water. 2 Comments

The cottonwoods beside the stream are leafing out in an unearthly shade of spring green.

They’re almost fluorescent.

There has been an orderly melt this spring, with plenty of cold nights. Runoff is supposed to peak this month, and the water is running clear now.

Six weeks ago at the same spot (March 22) the water was higher and siltier, and there wasn’t any green.

Love that green.

Prairie Dogs and Water

Published on May 2, 2008 in water. 11 Comments

Around here, people think prairie dogs are terrible pests. Ranchers say: if we called them prairie rats instead of prairie dogs, city people wouldn’t think they were so cute. Which seems like a silly thing to say, because prairie dogs are objectively very cute and don’t have naked tails.

If the people who’d like to remove prairie dogs from the landscape could only see underground, they’d feel differently. If ranchers had x-ray vision, they’d love prairie dogs, because prairie dogs change the pathways water takes through the land. (RDennis, this post’s for you.)

When rain falls on grasslands, most of the water that falls moves back into the air through evaporation. Rain that falls on vegetation will likely evaporate. Some of the water runs overground as run-off, which will possibly join a stream or more likely evaporate. Of the water that soaks into the soil, nearly all of it is taken up by the root systems of grasses and transpired back into the air. As a rule, rain that falls on the grasslands does not soak down to the groundwater, where it could replenish local springs and streams. Unless it falls on a prairie dog town.

The soils in prairie dog towns are moister than the soils in the surrounding grasslands, and higher in organic matter. This may account for the increased populations of tunneling insects and worms that honeycomb the soil profile in a prairie dog town. Macropores are tunnels with a diameter greater than 1 millimeter, and they promote the rapid transport of water through the soil. The macropores in a prairie dog town allow rainfall that would have been lost to evaporation or run-off to trickle down to the groundwater and replenish the local vegetation.

Flury, M., and H. Flühler. 1995. Tracer characteristics of brilliant blue FCF. Soil Science Society of America Journal. 59:22-27.

Here we have a photo (properly attributed, no less) that shows grasslands soil where dyed water was poured on the surface, and then the cross section was excavated. We can see that there’s no zone of saturation moving down from the surface, like we were taught in Hydrology. Instead, the water runs down holes build by animals, worms and beetles, and through channels left by decayed roots.

By allowing prairie dogs to tunnel the grasslands, you change the pathways water takes through the land. Instead of rain disappearing through evaporation, transpiration and run-off, it settles deeply into the land where it can do some good.

If ranchers had x-ray vision, we’d see less of this

and more of this

(Prairie Dog Rapture by Anthony Falbo)

Crossing the river

Published on April 20, 2008 in Colorado women, Do it yourself, dogs and water. 4 Comments

My friends decided to build a bridge because

a cottonwood fell across the river right in front of their house. It was close enough to where they wanted to cross that it seemed like a reasonable idea.

This is the view from upriver, looking downstream. Of course, it wasn’t this perfect by accident. The tree trunk was moved to the best place and is being stabilized before a handrail gets attached. Christy and Steve moved the cottonwood trunk into place with a comealong. (This comealong sells for $12.09, so it’s definitely the cheapest way to move big weights.

This is the view from downstream, looking up. The structure holding the near end of the trunk is artfully obscured by the red twig dogwood.

This end of the tree is forked, and they built a structure of notched logs to support it.

This is the only homemade bridge I can recall seeing. Most every bridge we cross has state sanction… but not this. I saw Christy scamper across it, but I’m holding out for a handrail until the water is warmer

and the dog wanted me to mention that she has no intention of ever using the bridge. Ever.

The stream is swollen

Published on April 16, 2008 in water. 1 Comment

This is our stream, swollen with spring. Right in the foreground is a boulder under the water. There is a dip in the water before the boulder, and a tail of white water behind it… and otherwise it’s hidden.

This is the same place 3 weeks ago. This boulder is why boaters get so good at reading the river.

Three weeks ago you saw it,

and now you don’t.

A good spring hike

Published on April 12, 2008 in deer herd, dogs and water. 3 Comments

In some areas, the snowmelt reveals unexpected surprises. This road was closed for the winter, and it’s the first time I’ve been here since fall.

I get a kick out of gravity. It’s so predictable.

This rock is so big it’ll take heavy equipment to move. And when I look up,

it seems like that rock might not be lonely much longer. I move right along, since I definitely don’t want to be standing under this many tons of stone, soil and tree. No thank you.

Across the river, the slope is made up of decomposed shale, which repels water.

It’s a peculiar material, because that water-repelling quality makes it hard for plants to get their roots down. This slope isn’t recently denuded; it’s been that way for ages. It makes for an odd riparian edge.

Another dog joined us back a mile ago, and now I see why: it’s not just fallen rocks that the snow left behind; it’s fallen deer too. This dog has visited this carcass before, I think.

My dog was so happy to be able to help.

Mudslide!

Published on April 7, 2008 in water. 2 Comments

The road on the other side of the valley was closed by a mudslide. The mud was four feet deep across the road, and it took two days to get the road cleared.

This is where the mud entered the road.

A major irrigation ditch runs parallel to the road. It’s not filled with water yet, so mud filled the ditch and flowed in both directions. The road crew cut a hole in the ditch so the mud could flow down into the orchard and out of the road.

That red triangle of earth is a cross section of the far wall of the ditch–the near wall is under mud so you can’t see it. The road crew cut a notch in this hundred year old irrigation ditch so the mud could drain from the road and hopefully from the irrigation ditch as well. Below, a section of the rail fence was removed so the mud wouldn’t sweep it away. There is a lot of mud being held in by the solid fence on the left.

I realized the next day that I didn’t have a shot of the rockslide where this material originated. Today was overcast so the picture is a little bland, but you can see how the color of the mudslide matches the color of this high altitude rockslide.

This is technically a debris flow, not a mudslide–it’s not topsoil that’s moving, but subsoil. In the San Juan mountains, these debris flows are triggered by water; this one in particular is from last winter’s heavy snowpack and the quick meltdown. In some places, mudslides are a product of human interventions like deforestation, agriculture or road construction; here they’re a function of the region’s geology, and of water.

The debris flows start when the snowpack melts, and continue intermittently through the summer. A big rainstorm can move the mountains as well as the melting snow. In this area, water moves the earth.

Beside the Stream

Archive for the 'water' Category

High water

Beavers move in, Part 2

Beavers move in, Part 1

An Act of God (Time: one month)

Beside the Stream

Prairie Dogs and Water

Crossing the river

The stream is swollen

A good spring hike

Mudslide!

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