Santa Fe County Erosion Control

by | Apr 12, 2022 | Past Projects, Restoration Projects

Santa Fe County, NM

 

This erosion control project is part of a larger restoration effort on private property in Santa Fe County. For this implementation, we worked closely alongside Jan-Willem Jansens of Ecotone, who designed the treatment (original design at right), as well as Paul Butt, Conservation Chair for the ECIA. Project goals include protecting the incision from further erosion and thereby protecting the meadow from further degradation.

The project gully initiates at a significant headcut (shown at the lower left corner in the design) within in a meadow just above a historic earthen dam that formed the terminus of a stock pond; after the berm breached, flow from upslope concentrated in the breach and continued to erode through soil that had deposited behind the dam over time to create a deep gully and a very active headcut.

Our work began with laying back the slope of the headcut to form a less steep and erosive angle, which had the benefit of allowing for better equipment access to the lower reach of the project. Above this slope, we excavated three long trenches, which we filled with gravels to stop subsurface “tunnel” erosion, and created a slight berm to direct flow towards a large rock run down.

Continuing downstream, we constructed a one rock dam, filter dam (composed of small boulders), rock run down (built around existing boulders to protect the grade drop), two bank armoring structures, another small rock run down and a final one rock dam.