Park Hill Branch - 1

Park Hill Branch - 2

Park Hill Branch - Part 2

“Serious problems cannot be dealt with at the level of thinking that created them.”  Albert Einstein

Phone: 405-620-2004

E-mail: russ@riverman-engineering.com

Address:

1504 Ann Arbor Drive

Norman, Oklahoma 73069-5363

Contact Us:

Phone: 405-620-2004

E-mail: russ@riverman-engineering.com

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.”                                Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

 

“The song of the river ends not at her banks but in the hearts of those who have loved her.”

                                Buffalo Joe

Park Hill Branch - 1 | Park Hill Branch - 2

I hadn’t been to the site for a couple of years and since the Tahlequah area had received heavy rains over the July 4, 2004 weekend, I went back up to check out the site.  Pictures from that visit are shown below.

Park Hill Branch looking upstream from bridge (July, 2004)

Park Hill Branch looking downstream

(July, 2004)

First rock vane and cross-vane

(July, 2004)

Channel trying to go around cross-vane

(July, 2004)

Third rock vane and cross-vane

(July, 2004)

Looking upstream, cross-vane on left

(July, 2004)

After four years, the site was looking very good.  The willows on the floodplain were growing nicely.  The structures were all doing great except that the channel was trying to get around the cross-vane on the left.  The problem isn’t too bad at this point, especially with the good stand of willows in the vicinity, but could become a problem if left alone.

Shirley had encouraged the maintenance guys to leave a strip of unmowed vegetation along the bank and was very pleased with the project.  She was still voicing some concerns about erosion around the bridge abutment on the left side.  She said that the problem wasn’t nearly as bad as it was before the project but that she was still concerned.  She was planning to have some guy come out and move gravel around it as apparently she had done before but asked for a more permanent solution.

I am currently drawing up plans and a cost estimate to fix the problem.  I’m proposing that another rock vane be placed immediately upstream of the abutment.  We will also fix the cross-vane while we are there.  We hope to complete the work in late August or late September, 2004.   A conceptual drawing of what the proposed change may look like is shown below.

Erosion at pedestrian bridge abutment

(July, 2004)

Proposed rock vane.

(July, 2004)