The Culvert=
Back in ‘64 my Dad got tired of driving through = the neighbors’ yards and across fields that were only questionably passable. There is a legal requirement for landowners to provide a road right-of-way on section lines = and Dad petitioned the township to build a road down the section line to our property from the Onigum Road. And what was eventually to become = 80th St NW was born. The only prob= lem was that it ended at our property line on the edge of about 150 yards of sw= amp with seasonal standing water. So the road project commenced. O= ur old 3-ton dump truck could haul about 3 yards of fill and the road took several hundred loads. It seemed like= the first hundred just sank out of sight. Some fill came from the north 40 acres and some came from our gravel pit west of Akeley. (As an aside, The Ah-Gwah-Ching cutoff in those days was not maintained and it = was worth our fixing it up to save the 5 extra miles and hassle of driving through Wa= lker with truckloads of dirt. Pretty soon everyone from Akeley who worked at = 220;the San” was happily taking the shortcut. ) It took all summer for our swamp ro= ad to become passable and another several iterations t= o bring it up to Dad’s standards. At the deepest part of the swamp—about 100 yards wide—the fill is a little over 6 feet high and it varies from 25 to 35 feet wide at its base.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Two cars can comfortably meet anyw= here along the top.
The landform drains south-to-north and we put in a cul= vert to provide flow-through. Over= the years the road sank a little and was topped several more times and with snow plowing and inexpert smoothing has spread out to cover the ends of the culvert. So the water doesn&#= 8217;t drain so well. That wasn̵= 7;t much of an issue for several years, but this year had record snowfall and m= elt plus a lot of spring rain and as of 3 June the water on the south side had risen more than halfway up the height fill.
This much water dammed up will cause problems
eventually—from road washouts to tree kills—and needs to be
relieved. The urgency for rig=
ht now
was because there is a grassy cutoff lane to where Jake and Leah want to pa=
rk
wedding guests and it is mushy enough to be impassible due to the unusually
high water level. So this wee=
kend
(4-5 June) Jake and Ed undertook to “clear out the culvert.”
Jake and Ed rented a Kubota backhoe Saturday afternoon: “24 hours on the clock and 8 hours on the meter, please.” First they went down to the beaver= pond and found the old culvert that was installed there. No = longer in use and a bit rusty and half full of silt, but basically 20 feet of pret= ty sound 12 inch steel pipe. So the Kubota teetered across the old beaver dam to dig out the culvert and th= en drag it out about 200 yards to load it on a trailer. Then the fun started.
Jake surveyed the most likely spot for a new culvert—deep (high fill) on both sides and relatively narrow, but sti= ll 25 feet wide. It took about t= wo hours on the Kubota meter (and a couple years off our lives) to dig the full channel. What started out to = be a minimal (??) trench 6 feet wide by 5 feet deep took a bad turn when the backhoe found a large (and very solid after 45” years) tree stump about 4 feet below the road surface= and everything had to move over. = So the final trench was about 7 feet wide at the bottom and 10 feet wide at the to= p, 5 feet deep, and 25 feet long. = That comes to about 5 yards of fill moved to create a raging river 3 feet deep a= nd 8 feet wide. We let it drain overnight Saturday and by measuring the marks on the trees Sunday morning it looks like the water level dropped between 25 and 30 inches. The water level in the south side = is very manageable now and it smells like a sewer overflowed from all the expo= sed swamp muck.
Sunday morning we cleaned the silt out of the recycled culvert and installed it at the bottom of the trench. Given the culvert’s age push= ing 50, Jake and Ed also did some extra creative construction to build a protec= tive vault from old reclaimed sidewalk squares (thanks, Sam) and filled in the trench over it. Ed will have = some cosmetic road work to do next weekend but the big challenge is behind us an= d we should be in good shape for drainage for another 50 years or so.
Here are a few captioned snapshots of the whole process. This first one shows= part of the road fill from the shallow end.&nbs= p; Here are the ingredients to makeshift culvert vault covers.
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image002.jpg")
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/span>
Here are the Kubota backhoe and the reclaimed culvert.= The fill is about 5 feet high at t= his point.
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image004.jpg")
And a couple shots of THE MAN digging. The fill is 6 feet high here and y= ou can see the lake behind him. Guys= if you can come up with ANY excuse to get hold of one of these, grab it. It sounds pricey at almost $300 fo= r 24 hours but you can get a lot done – and damn it’s fun!
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image006.jpg")
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image008.jpg")
After less than an hour the water level had dropped ne=
arly
20 inches, as can be seen by the high water marks on the trees.![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image010.jpg")
It pays to have the right equipment. The Kubota is snazzy but the Masse= y will be staying home with us when the party is over.
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image012.jpg")
And the finished job is inspected and approved!
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image014.jpg")
Do they make these things in pink??
![](3D"TheCulvert_files/image016.jpg")