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Antiquated Drainage Practices Are Ill-AdvisedChampaign, September 4, 2003: On Wednesday morning, September 3rd, just 48 hours after an enormous rain of 5-7 inches fell over the Upper Salt Fork River watershed, direct observation revealed that from county road 2700 N down to 1950 N (7 1/2 miles) water had receded enough to allow tiles to run unimpeded.Thus the upper Salt Fork passed the "2-day" test and drained nearly 70% of the watershed quickly enough to avert crop damage and casts doubt on plans to deepen the upper reach of the river. Prairie Rivers Network cautions that the plan by the Upper Salt Fork Drainage District (USFDD) to wholesale clear-cut and re-dredge more than fifteen miles of the Salt Fork River does not merit support. A petition before the Circuit Court asking for authority to levy an additional assessment of $.67 million contains sweeping assertions, but no documentation to support the need for such extensive and drastic work. The petition before the court is inadequate in several respects. First, no specific tile drains are identified as lacking outlet due to inadequate ditch capacity. In addition, no crop damage is attributed to lack of ditch capacity. If damage does occur, it may result from inadequate tile or from surface water impoundment behind ditch-side berms or be attributed to the normal risk assumed by farming in a flood plain. It would not necessarily indicate lack of ditch capacity, and therefore should not be used to justify re-dredging. The calculation of benefits from the proposed work to farmland in the tax roll appears to be hypothetical, inflated, and unconnected to real and actual benefits that might result from the proposed work. Overstated benefits should not be used to justify the proposed work. Of significant concern, the petition also fails to demonstrate how the proposed work would protect environmental values such as fish and wildlife habitat and avoid erosion as required by the drainage code. "We cannot understand how the engineer's report and the petition can claim that riparian habitat will not be significantly affected by this proposed work, when they plan to dredge and clear-cut every tree and remove every bit of vegetation in the river, on both slopes and within twenty feet of the river bank," said Marc Miller of Prairie Rivers Network. "Even the Corps of Engineers recommended that clearing of vegetation and trees be limited to one side of the river and only to vegetation which obviously obstructs the stream flow." The upper Salt Fork River corridor is multifunctional, and clear-cutting and re-dredging the upper Salt fork by the USFDD is unsupportable because it completely ignores that fact. In addition to providing drainage for farmers, the upper Salt Fork also provides water for downstream users, scenic beauty to nearby homeowners, enjoyable and important wildlife habitat, and an essential spawning ground for fish that later populate fishing grounds downstream. These de facto uses are real and legitimate, and the public has the right to expect that its multiple uses will be respected and accommodated by drainage decision-makers. Under State law, all fish and wildlife are the property of the people of Illinois. Prairie Rivers advocates that drainage maintenance techniques be selected carefully and used so that multiple ditch functions will be accommodated and protected. The upper Salt Fork River tributaries are part of single system and the desire to speed upland drainage must be balanced with the need to avoid downstream flooding. The petition contains no evidence that dredging the channel will not raise downstream water levels. Prairie Rivers also opposes wholesale re-dredging because experience shows that landownersâ money spent on re-dredging is often wasted. Specifically, drainage districts often find that a "re-dredge fix" lasts only a couple of years. In addition, it destabilizes ditch banks causing them to slump and erode, thereby producing material that nature re-deposits in the channel. A wide channel bottom formed by re-dredging a ditch can not be kept open by the low flow of water that occurs most of the year. Prairie Rivers supports the need to provide adequate drainage for row-crop production, but advocates the use of specific problem-targeted maintenance techniques. Unfortunately the petition before the court does not detail specific problems and does not propose problem-specific solutions. On August 26, 2003, the Champaign County Soil and Water Conservation District and Farm Bureau co-sponsored a drainage workshop in which drainage commissioners were cautioned that large excavating projects are often poor investments because they result in unstable channels that can quickly revert to their previous condition. "Decades ago our grandfathers created drainage ditches by excavating. Now the task of maintaining those ditches calls for the use of new techniques such as localized bank protection, minor meander adjustment, spot removal of obstructions, all done with understanding of water flow realities and the willingness to accommodate multiple ditch uses", said Charles Goodall, farmer, drainage district commissioner, and Board | |