A pond near the author’s home shows signs of siltation but is still mostly clear due to a stormwater migration program. (Bob Christiansen)

Russ Lanoie

One of the biggest environment threats to ponds, lakes and rivers comes from erosion of natural soils in developed areas. Unpaved roads, road shoulders, driveways, roof drip lines, construction and logging areas are subject to the erosive power of rain. As the late Tin Mountain Executive Director and forest ecologist Dr. Michael Cline in Albany, New Hampshire often pointed out, “All that soil-laden water ends up somewhere; too often it silts streams destroying fish breeding beds and adding phosphorus into nearby lakes contributing to algal blooms.”

Our recent rain events seem to be more intense on a regular basis regardless of whether you blame global climate change or not. There have been several events just this past year that have caused damage that is still being repaired. But the soil that has been washed away is just beginning to cause problems that will be even harder to repair than the obvious washouts left behind. There are increased reports of swimming areas being jeopardized with dangerous contaminants, and sometimes the threat is even visible to the naked eye, as in the photo of a pond near my home in Madison, NH.

This is the pond where I used to swim with my kids, and where I now often launch my kayak. For the last ten years, I have had the dubious task of trying to maintain the very basic unpaved roads in the burgeoning housing development included in the watershed uphill from the pond that drains directly into it. Fortunately, the pond is still mostly clear in spite of this siltation, so local residents have formed an association to protect it from further degradation. I am pleased to be a consultant to the association, offering what I have learned in the last sixty years of driveway and road maintenance. In addition to providing proper ongoing maintenance, their upcoming stormwater migration program will likely involve stone lining ditches and installing check dams and settling ponds, in part just to deal with the excessive amount of winter traction sand spread on the development’s steep roads.

While it will never be possible to control the weather in New England, it is possible to stabilize roads and driveways to keep them in place in heavy rains. A combination of the right kind of materials along with the right maintenance techniques can go a long way towards discouraging erosion. Since developing a unique way of performing this maintenance thirty-five years ago, I have had plenty of opportunities to perfect my methodology while maintaining up to twenty-five local developments. Based on this practical experience, I had the opportunity to present road maintenance workshops throughout southern Maine and New Hampshire, primarily to local road associations who have faced issues similar to those now facing my local pond owner’s group. I have learned there are as many ways to address the issue of stabilizing unpaved or gravel roads as there are practitioners of the art. I also learned techniques from some, helped to dispel the misconceptions of others, and have come to appreciate that there are differences in the kind of road building materials available from place to place.

A catch basin fits into a smaller space than a rain garden and traps stormwater otherwise bound for the lake and lets it soak away into the ground. (Courtesy photo)

In recent years I helped several homeowners on the shores of Madison’s pristine Silver Lake deal with stormwater running directly into the lake. One of these projects became the cover story for a NH Lakes Association newsletter. Using the proper material and careful grading, I directed water off into the woods where any silt is trapped as water percolates into the ground. Last season I helped Dr. Bob Newton, a groundwater geologist who also spends his summers on Silver Lake, construct a rain garden as part of our ongoing stormwater mitigation plan for his property. The rain garden is designed to trap any silt carried by the small section of runoff that could not be directed safely into the woods. I am pleased to report that both of these Silver Lake projects have successfully controlled runoff since their installation.

While their Road Scholar programs are available primarily to Public Works personnel, I have directed my training to the private contractors and laymen who are trying their best to responsibly deal with often difficult situations.

As a result of my years of “playing in the dirt,” I wrote a road maintenance manual, “A Ditch in Time,” that is available for free on my website, www.RuralHomeTech.com. It has been recognized by the NHDES as it “fills an important niche in the identification and promotion of best management practices to protect water quality.”

I am pleased to report that the storms of 2023 that caused flooding damage to the Mount Washington Valley did little damage to that road system above my favorite local pond helping to prove that proper and timely dirt road maintenance can be effective at reducing surface water contamination.

Russ Lanoie is a long-time solar proponent in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and operated his Alternative Systems business in the 1970s—80s selling solar hot water systems, composting toilets, and Window Quilts®. He lives in a passive solar home which has had Daystar solar hot water for forty years, and 11kW of PVs on his barn since 2015. www.RuralHomeTech.com.