Photo By Brannen Parrish | A completed portion of the retaining wall near site 37 at Mound Valley Park on...... read more read more
For more nearly four decades, railroad ties prevented erosion around many of the campsites and roads throughout Mound Valley Park on Pearson-Skubitz Big Hill Lake.
The maintenance staff at the Kansas Area project are replacing the deteriorating planks with more permanent concrete retaining walls.
“Those railroad ties lasted nearly 40 years and that’s impressive,” said Chauncey Poe, one of two maintenance technicians assigned to the project. “But these concrete retaining walls will provide a more permanent structure to prevent erosion of dirt and topsoil onto the roads and campsite pads.”
So far Chauncey and Chad Nash, the other maintenance technician, have already removed several railroad tie retaining walls and replaced them with concrete walls. They aim to replace six more retaining walls in the comings weeks.
At a retaining wall near site 38 at Mound Valley Feb. 16, the men poured more than three and a half yards of concrete.
“This wall is two feet high by eight inches thick,” said Nash. “It should last even longer than the railroad tie walls.”
To give the walls a more natural appearance, the men are using stamps that create grooves and give the wall bark-like texture and appearance.
“The lake manager [Christopher Hammershmidt] told us that as long as we were going to be replacing the retaining wall we might as well give it a more natural look. It’s a small feature but it will look nice in this environment.”
Construction of Big Hill began in 1974 and the project was opened for full flood control operations in 1981. The lake is located near Cherryvale, Kansas at Mile 33.3 of Big Hill Creek, a tributary of the Verdigris. It is one of eight Tulsa District Lakes in the Sunflower State.
| Date Taken: | 02.16.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 02.16.2022 15:59 |
| Story ID: | 414777 |
| Location: | TULSA, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 93 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Retaining style: Big Hill maintenance team upgrades Mound Valley Park on Big Hill, by Brannen Parrish, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
