Chronicles Of A Struggling Creek - Another Trip

There were drops of hope on my windshield this morning as I made my way to the mercantile store.  A bit of servitude would be given to the store but not much, for other things were on my mind.  The morning shower never developed into a full rain event, but at this point nothing is prettier than the sound of rain - nothing smells better than the scent of rain. 

I made short order of it at the store because unfortunately I own one of those minds that never gets rest.  In short - things bug me.  On my mind once again was the dam and that bush plugged into the outflow pipe. 

Back in the creek the wade begin.  For some reason this is a tiring wade, but this morning it was enjoyable because new carp water was discovered.  Although it was hard seeing the beeves, I did actually see about ten and then from judging all the mud clouds encountered, I'm estimating there are 30 - 40 carp in this stretch of the creek. All the more reason to try and get some flow going.

At the dam, I slid down the steep face of the dam and grab hold of the bush.  With a hefty tug, the bush dislodged.  What followed was the most toxic, nasty looking water I've ever seen.  The flow increased immediately, but that was short lived and soon went back to a trickle.  The sludge that come out of pipe hit the water below and begin to spread like a threatening spectre across pool.

The water immediately above the dam is not deep at all.  The water is resting on basically one large sand bar that has developed overtime.  The dam has acted as a stopping point for the filling sand and taken away the natural distribution process of a creek.  Upstream, a ways, is a stretch of water close to half of a mile in length that has a good amount of water.

Charlie thinks this outlet is what he calls a "low flow outlet", designed to allow water to continue to flow during low flow periods.  Whatever it is, it isn't working properly.  Most likely it's going to take a backhoe or a horizontal bore to unplug this mess. 

Right now our goals are (1) Locate someone that has knowledge of the construction and functioning of this dam, (2) encourage the owner or caretakers to fix the problem, and (3) establish a maintenance schedule to keep this outflow free of obstructions.

Besides these things we need some good heavy rain and this is where there might be good news. 

This afternoon this parcel of the prairie ocean is under a severe weather warning.  Usually with severe weather there is rain and hopefully the rain will be substantial.  Just a three or four inch rain could turns things around for this little creek.

Then there is next week and within next week rests a lot of hope.