Devil's Club
Topo for a new fish passage culvert.
Boy do I hate Devil's Club!
Explain "fish passage culvert", please.
"an 18-month-old mountain lion recently separated from its mother and seeking its own terrain was hit and killed on the 405 freeway"
Did it have a letter of introduction tucked into a hind pocket that provided such specific information?
The community of Silo Tech already had something like that over 50 years ago. A fraction of the University-owned cattle herd could roam both sides of a fairly new major street for the growing city.
But, back to the basic fish question. Is this to assist them in going upstream or downstream? What is the root problem?
Explain "fish passage culvert"
Simply a culvert which fish - specifically the small fry and those returning to creeks to spawn - can swim up. Typically that means slowing the rate of flow and providing a natural creek bed bottom. Check out the April 2022 edition of Scientific American for a good article on restoring stream health.
Our current laws on culvert and bridge installations require the bottom be twelve inches lower than the natural flow line, so as to allow upstream travel and temporary homes during dry times. The dirt-saver culverts of the 1960's were a brilliant idea for slowing soil erosion but were a complete block to upstream travel. Thus, any modern culvert is a fish passage culvert.
Carharts are the only pants that??ll stop those thorns.
Darn, I wish the picture quality was a little better in the upload????
You can see the old culvert has eroded a big drop. Once the plans are made, they divert the creek and build footings and set a big dome over it like in Mark's picture. They use to use big squash pipe and lay rocks in it but haven't seen that done in a few years.
I made one wrong swing with the machete and layed one of those devil's clubs against my thigh with great force. Thorns went through rain pants, double leg carhart and long jons. I think the tips should work their way out by the end of the week once some puss builds up????
Plans? Plans? We don't need no stinkin' plans.
You bring in a trackhoe. Cut out the area upstream of the culvert, plus dig down a foot where the culvert goes, slap a new culvert into place, add soil and rock to return firmly packed to road level. Now, the culvert is no longer the cause of the lack of fish passage. The problem is the erodibility of the native soil.
We have some cactus in this area known as prickly pear. They grow close to the ground but develop "ears" that stand up a few inches. Proper maintenance of the pasture will choke them out eventually. But, they are covered in a billion little thorns per "ear". When I was maybe 12 or so, I tripped while chasing after a cow and landed fully prone in a bed of those heinous plants. Palms, arms, legs and other places were pierced thousands of times in an instant. Seemed to take forever to get all of the little black dots in my skin to go away.
