Value of knowing history in your area

enjoy the ride

Sufficient Life
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Where I live, there was a fertile area called Pepperwood. It was a large area near a large river with unusually good growing ground so a lot of truck farmers sprung up with accomanying little towns. This lasted for about 70 years. Then there was one "hundred" year flood in 1957 which took everything, houses, barns, livestock and people out. This "hundred year" flood repeated itself in 1964, in which all the highways into the area where under 30 feet of water for a month. There are signs along the freeway where you are a hundred feet above the river and the high water sign is still thirty feet above your head. Only recently has Pepperwood had people building again.

It's been at least 20 years since we have had a significant rainy season. If you have not seen it, you would not believe that 60 foot high bridges were under water.

So there has been a build up of houses in the flood plains- that nice flat land with good water. But there is a reason for the "flatness" and it is not good. The county has rules about building but it does not exclude building in flood plains.

A good reason to know what your land has done in the past- not that keeps new things from happening. One of the reasons why I like to go into winter (rainy season) with a full shed of hay.
 

Farmfresh

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Even more recent history can effect you.

When my hubby was a child their 1/2 acre yard was adjacent to a deep wide erosion ditch. They used to play in it and the wood around it.

When he was a teen developers bought the land that included the ditch. They laid a drainage pipe and filled the ditch with dirt then almost immediately set about building a row of houses where the ditch had been. Within a few years all of the homes had major settling, cracked foundations and an occasional river running right down the same old path the water always took through their backyards.

Although a few tried no restitution was ever gained.
 

sylvie

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Good topic and soooo true!
I don't know why zoning gives permits to builders for floodplains. We've got them even-keel with creek banks. An entire development of condos was flooded and deemed uninhabitable by the health dept, and recently leveled.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/03/painesville_will_tear_down_con.html

Another nearby community is trying to build quite a complex on some of the most poisonous land known. It has a clay cap on top of chromate ponds. There are now vineyards planted with a winery in the works. Grape roots go down deep. What are they thinking?! It is a Love Canal waiting to happen. And the cancer clusters are un-nerving.
http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/badlands/Content?oid=1501842
 

lupinfarm

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My old house was located on a former Apple Orchard, so as you can imagine the soil was AWFUL.

I remember watching a television show in the UK about moving to the country and a family were looking at a house where sometime in the 1800s the woman owner of the house decided to reroute the creek that ran through the property and every day would redirect it by digging and eventually the creek ran further away from the house and gave her more garden. No one even noticed she was moving the creek until it had been done LOL.
 

sylvie

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lupinfarm said:
My old house was located on a former Apple Orchard, so as you can imagine the soil was AWFUL.

I remember watching a television show in the UK about moving to the country and a family were looking at a house where sometime in the 1800s the woman owner of the house decided to reroute the creek that ran through the property and every day would redirect it by digging and eventually the creek ran further away from the house and gave her more garden. No one even noticed she was moving the creek until it had been done LOL.
Old apple orchards were saturated with cheap available goodies like DDT.

That's so funny about that lady! :lol:
 

murphysranch

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Enjoytheride: I've seen those signs up there, in Ave of the Giants. Amazing to think the river could rise that high. My hubby went thru the tsunami in Crescent City, and found it very weird to have the ocean several miles inland for a while....
 

ams3651

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talk about more recent history, I was just saying to my gram the other day that someone is building a house in the hollow right on the bend of the creek that floods nearly every year. where they are building their house on the creek bank they will easily get 8 feet of water. Some people just cant be talked smart.

Near where I live the town floods every couple years at the lower end. And people continue to rebuild. I just dont understand it. I rented an apartment there and lived there less than 6 months and had to evacuate for a flood. The water stopped 6 feet from the front door but the problem was the town had no sewer and no water for a week. This isnt like a flood every 30 years, its more like every 5 years.
 

lupinfarm

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sylvie said:
lupinfarm said:
My old house was located on a former Apple Orchard, so as you can imagine the soil was AWFUL.

I remember watching a television show in the UK about moving to the country and a family were looking at a house where sometime in the 1800s the woman owner of the house decided to reroute the creek that ran through the property and every day would redirect it by digging and eventually the creek ran further away from the house and gave her more garden. No one even noticed she was moving the creek until it had been done LOL.
Old apple orchards were saturated with cheap available goodies like DDT.

That's so funny about that lady! :lol:
With us it was the incredible amount of clay. Ugh. Lame. This was like an ancient ancient ancient apple orchard, from the start of the town lol. It spanned hundreds of acres.
 

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