Merriam, Kansas
Client:
City of Merriam
This project was initiated due to flooding and erosion concerns. Erosion from the channel threatened the stability of a home foundation. The area was also prone to flooding during significant storm events. The problems could have been eliminated by traditional solutions, however, the property owners desired to retain the "natural" look of the stream system and the City of Merriam desired lower cost solutions.
This design/build project by Terra Technologies consisted of the construction of a large reinforced box culvert beneath Goodman Road with downstream channel improvements for a distance of approximately 400 feet. Immediately downstream of the new box culvert, articulated concrete block was placed in the channel bottom to absorb the initial turbulent energy of the water as it exits the culvert. This area was planted with warm season grasses that will visually obscure the concrete and provide energy dissipation for high velocity flows before they enter the naturally stabilized channel downstream.
A steep slope adjacent to the channel was stabilized with a geo-cellular confinement system. The surface cells were planted with a mixture of grasses, vines, and flowers to enhance the aesthetics. Vegetation on the geo-cellular wall is now fully mature, visually obscuring the wall system and providing additional stabilization to the soils within the wall. The downstream channel was lined with a combination of wire-reinforced turf reinforcing matrix (TRM) and monofilament TRM. This system provides a permanent reinforcement for the vegetation root systems and also provides short-term erosion control. The monofilament material was selected due to the open texture that allows vegetation to rapidly grow through it while not causing a shading impact that significantly slows the germination and growth of warm season grasses.
Due to the timing of construction, plugged vegetation was utilized as well as seed. The plugged materials allow a more rapid establishment of the plant materials. This was necessary since the seeding and plugging was done in late July, a time frame outside of the normally recommended seeding period. Construction was completed in July, 1999. A vigorous warm season plant community was established by June of the year 2000.
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