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.
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