🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <33DCB96A.64E9@mail.olympus.net>,
Michael Hagen <mhagen@mail.olympus.net> wrote:

> Recent  work has actually shown that buffers which extend all the way up
> the ridge to the next watershed are the most effective at preventing
> human caused impacts to streams. 

ROTFL!  You can't get much more effective, or less efficient, than that!

> Of course there are varying opinions on this [;)  hardhat on....

Joking aside, this sort of protection is commonly applied around drinking
water reservoirs.  There was a huge amount of controversy a few years
ago about allowing logging in Portland's Bull Run watershed. Sure enough, 
they got mud in their water even though the logging was a long ways from 
the stream, and the loggers used silt curtains and ground cover.

A silt curtain is a porous fabric fence about two feet high.  The lower
edge is buried in the soil.  It interrupts silt erosion on slopes and
gives ground cover time to become established.  Another technique that 
is cheap and easy to install is one or two layers of baled straw.  If the
straw is baled with sisal twine instead of plastic or wire, this has the
advantage of being 100% biodegradable, so you don't have to bother removing
it.  Baled straw has very few viable seeds, so you don't get much in the
way of weed propagation.  It won't do much to stop the occasional runaway
tree, though.  :)

Erosion control measures have become common on construction sites.  I think
we'll see more of them on logging sites as time goes on.

-- Larry