A few days ago I worked on an eroded stretch of gravel farm road (not the logging road discussed above). I put old hay in all the little gullies and weighed the hay down with rocks. I did a careful job of tracing the flow of water and placing little barriers to slow it. It’s especially important in this work to get the upstream parts right.
That evening it rained heavily for about half an hour. I inspected my work the next day. I did not expect to see much difference, because this was not a big winter storm but just a summer evening rainfall.
But I was mistaken. Although my system held up fairly well, in some places the force of the water had carved new channels and in a couple of spots the hay had been pulled out from under the rocks completely. Other places the stones and hay stood fast, and were half-buried in twigs, bark and silt. It was as if the barrier had gathered its treasures about it during the storm.
In 2016, scale is tricky. I saw the outline of the problem, but I missed the scale by at least a factor of two. My anti-erosion efforts would not stand up to a big winter storm.
The cynicism and delusions of modern America are on a scale that we missed.
Guided by my natural experiment, I spent much of the morning strengthening and expanding the hay and rock barriers. When water flows across the earth, it is either cutting soil away or depositing it, depending on its velocity. There is no steady state.
The Socialist Investor 