Stream Care Guide:

Management Tips for Streamside Property Owners

Possible Problems & Fixes

What Can go Wrong in Your Watershed and How You Can Fix It

Soil erosion can occur on streambanks, pastures, unpaved driveways, construction sites, or any area on your property where soil is distrubed or not protected from the erosive forces of rainfall, storm runoff and gravity, or where vegetation is removed. Eroded soil almost always ends up in a stream, as flowing water and gravity carry it downhill.

Too much sediment (soil, sand, and gravel) in the stream causes it to fill in. This reduces its ability to carry flood waters, which can increase the extent and the frequency of flooding. Sedimentation also can be very harmful to fish and wildlife. Pools fill in, insects are smothered, spawning gravels are clogged, and bank erosion may increase. Sedimentation greatly reduces habitat area and fish populations.

Sedimentation greatly reduces habitat area and fish populations

In order to control erosion, you need to reduce the force of water against the soil. This can be accomplished by directing storm drainage away from bare soil into stable, vegetated areas, or by armoring the soil with protective materials such as gravel, rocks, straw mulch, or other substances. You also need to protect the soil against this force, by lining a drainage channel with filter fabric and rocks for example.

Spreading a thick layer of clean, grain straw on bare soil is a simple but effective erosion control measure that protects the soil from the impact of rainfall, and also reduces the force of running water by slowing it down. A layer of straw will not be enough to protect the ground if it is too steep (more than 2: 1, two feet horizontal run for a one foot vertical rise) or if the amount or speed of water flow is too great.

Replant disturbed soils as quickly as possible. On ground that is not too steep, a covering of straw over newly bared earth will help prevent erosion until vegetation has returned. On steeper ground, straw blankets should be used to hold the soil from slipping.

Pasture or corral areas should be bound by strips of undisturbed vegetation to act as a silt-catching filter.

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