Creating Ponds
Plastic Remediation
Digging Out
Stream and Ponds
Wetland Habitat
Planting Trees
Maintaining Trees
Site Plan
Budget
Preparation
Trees & Shrubs
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West Bank Wetlands Kundalini Stream and Pasture Ponds
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Turning a water problem into a beautiful landscape feature
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Lower pasture, pond, Garrard Creek and reforested riparian zone, May 2009.
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Low pasture along Garrard Creek before the ponds, Spring 1999.
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A small perennial stream drains the farm's western watershed, crossing 500 feet of flat pastureland before it enters a much larger creek. During the heavy flooding years of the 1990's, the stream channel became choked with sediment and the waters dispersed broadly across the pasture, creating a muddy mess for cows and haying equipment.
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Winter flooding of the lower pasture.
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During the summer of 1999, a new channel was hand-carved across the pasture, with its curvy, snake-like course earning it the name "Kundalini Stream". It passes through two ponds before it finally enters the creek. The stream has enough flow to keep the ponds full year-round, and the water system has become a magnet for wildlife, including ducks, herons, crayfish and even a sleek pair of river otters. Prior to developing the streambed and ponds, there was no water feature available to wildlife, just a problematic soggy pasture.
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Kundalini Stream (dug by hand shovel), February 2000.
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Heavy winter storms bring high flows of water with extreme sediment load that can overwhelm our stream and ponds, so a large channel was bulldozed at the mouth of the ravine to divert the storm runoff into the pasture, where the sediment is intercepted by the grass, creating rich topsoil, instead of ending up in the creek where it adversely affects salmon and other aquatic inhabitants.
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Bulldozing the ponds and channel, October 1999.
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