Looking For Answers
Robin Ulmer, Boquet River Association

n this video, highway superintendents, environmental groups, elected officials, sportsmen, engineers, and agency personnel talk frankly about the problems and impact of sediment runoff from rural roads. Ditches erode rapidly, storm drains and culverts plug, road budgets and aquatic life suffer, and revenues from fishermen decline.

hen road superintendents tackle sediment runoff they frequently face right-of-way restrictions, impact from private roads and drives, multiple jurisdictions and agency permits, and just plain lack of time to plan and coordinate controls.

ll parties agree that controls become easier if an environmental or watershed group gets involved. This group can seek funds, negotiate with landowners, apply for permits, get technical and volunteer assistance, and build partnerships.

BACKGROUND

n 1998, the Boquet River Association (BRASS) was awarded a small grant ($18,000) by the Lake Champlain Basin Program to work with local highway departments in New York on projects to curb sediment runoff into rivers and Lake Champlain. BRASS met with road superintendents from 18 towns in the Boquet, AuSable, and Little AuSable watersheds to discuss sediment runoff problems. Because this area of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Valley had just suffered a severe ice storm and flooding in 1998, many problems were huge, costly, and beyond the scope of the grant. However, six projects were finally chosen by superintendents. Interestingly, five of the projects involved landowners.

THE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

he six projects were:

1. A boat slip in a lake marina filled with winter sanding material via town and county stormwater drains;
2. Ditch erosion, along with an adjacent eroding hillside, sent sediment into a trout stream;
3. Winter snow, removed from a busy town and piled beside a river, leaked sand and road salts;
4. Water from a steep private road frequently washed out a town road below;
5. Material eroded from a steep private drive to a golf course helped plug a 300-foot underground drain pipe of 4-foot diameter causing the flooding of nearby properties; and
6. Ditch water flow, along a steep dirt road leading to a river, often collapsed ditches and eroded road edges, while discharge culverts on the river bank had created huge ravines.

he problems were solved with installation of a pre-built catchment basin, ditch turn outs, 3-dimensional fabric ditch liners, stone lined settling ponds, road grading, ditch check dams, installation of gabion mattresses under a river bank discharge pipe.

LESSONS LEARNED

t takes many cooperative parties to solve a good percentage of the road runoff problems. Road departments work within yearly approved budgets, so there is usually little long-term planning. Also, many small towns lack ordinances that will keep road departments from responding to one emergency after another and save taxpayer dollars. Often runoff problems are caused by private landowners and developers. Since time is needed to meet, work out solutions, and come to agreements, there is a needed role for watershed groups to help their road departments and residents in solve problems.

BACKGROUND TO VIDEO

efore and after video footage was filmed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) at project sites as an in-kind match to the Lake Champlain Basin Program grant. Videographer James Valastro reviewed these tapes, then filmed new segments to create a video that would:

Describe why we need to reduce sediment entry to water bodies
Describe why partnerships can help solve problems
Encourage road departments and elected officials to plan ways to reduce future runoff
And to encourage residents to take responsibility for runoff problems they cause

New footage, editing, and production were possible through a grant to the Boquet River Association from the Kelsey Trust.

Another small grant, from the HoneyBee Community Fund, permitted original Adirondack style instrumentation by music professor Dan Berggren.