Opinion

A Christmas stroll up Happy Creek

Published

5 years ago

December 31, 2020

I’m taking this opportunity to share a Christmas walk along Happy Creek with my fellow residents. After two inches of rain, added to snowmelt, my husband and I wanted to see how the Front Street clear-cut and 8th Street riprap had held up. We also checked in on Lions Park and wandered up the stream to the Norfolk Southern crossing just south of 6th Street.

Happy Creek at Front Street Christmas Day. Courtesy Photos Sonja Carlborg

As you can see, Front Street was not at its best: silt fence and other Erosion & Sediment Control awry, a layer of sediment scrubbed from the shelf. And did you know that the project is to be completed by midnight December 31, 2020? If that’s not possible, Town Council can apply for a project extension before then or pay $34,700 to the Department of Environmental Quality in fines out of our tax dollars.

Evidently, the project budget we’ve all been asking for does not exist. Town Finance Director B.J. Wilson informed a Save Happy Creek Facebook follower that most expenses (personnel, etc) are coming out of the town operating budget. Technically there’s nothing wrong with this approach, but it does make it hard to determine how much of our taxes were actually spent on this unnecessary project. If the Town files for an extension, the $34,700 can be used to cover other project expenses. Since CHA Consulting was paid $8500 for plans that have now been revised twice (still no construction plan), that would leave $26,200. The Save Happy Creek Coalition figures that riprap alone will run about $100K, but since $34,700 may be going to pay the fine, how does that compute?

Heading down to the 8th Street site, we found the flood pictured below. (The Town Council apparently never applied for the Land Disturbance permit required for that project.) Unfortunately, until the low-water bridge is replaced, that “flood mitigation” project will remain dollars-and-water over the dam. Riprap attempted to address a symptom rather than the cause of the problem here. Why not do the right thing the first time around instead of paying more to fix it again later?

Eighth Street closed from Christmas flooding

Pictured below, we spotted the Rosgen structures beautifully performing their function at Lions Park. Installed in 2006-07, Rosgens are monster-size boulders strategically placed in a stream to slow the water along the banks, channeling it toward the center to prevent erosion. They’re effective, natural, attractive, and good for you and the stream.

Above, Rosgen structure boulders placed in 2006-7 doing their job during Christmas 2020 flooding; below the Rosgen boulders during low water.

Unfortunately, we also spotted this manhole spouting sewage and stormwater into the stream where children play and trout are released. Taken a couple of days later, the second picture reveals encrustation along the sewer water’s path, a sign of persistent leakage into Happy Creek. Tax dollars allocated to Inflow & Infiltration by the Town over the past two years were intended to correct problems like this.

Above, sewer draining untreated stormflow into Happy Creek along Lions Park Christmas day; below, apparently it is not a new problem as this sewage encrustation path at Lions Park would seem to indicate.

We were unprepared for what we discovered upstream, making us wonder all over again, why was a lovely functioning riparian buffer destroyed along Front Street when these problems could have been addressed instead?