Thorn(y) problem Debris clogs creek, resulting in erosion, flooding
JEFFERSON TWP — Property owners on Creek Road once enjoyed Thorn Creek as it meandered past their homes.
Today, the creek's deteriorated condition is the cause of damaging floods in heavy rain events.
Joe Markus, who has lived on his Creek Road property since 1960, said when heavy rains would cause the creek to breach its banks 12 to 15 years ago, the water was no more than ankle deep.
Heavy rain now sends the water level to his waist.
“You would think you're at the ocean,” Markus said. “It's that bad.”
The flooding events also have been much more frequent in recent years, he said.
His uncle, Rudy Markus, 81, lives just down the road.
Like his nephew's, his home is far enough uphill from the creek to avoid damage, but his lower yard frequently floods after heavy rainfall.The men say the problem is the debris that washes downstream and forms dams along the creek.The water then diverts around the dam and loosens the soil on the bank, causing earth to fall into the water.While 11 tires can be seen in an 80-foot stretch of the creek and other debris like lawn furniture, pallets and even toys litter the waterway after a rainstorm, fallen trees are the main cause of the damming.Both men have worked over the years to remove trees from the creek and even those that have washed up onto their properties.Joe Markus cut up trees and offered them up as free firewood along his road after a particularly wet storm.But the backbreaking work of standing in a creek with a chain saw and cutting up huge fallen trees has become difficult for the men.“We've done as much as we could to clean it up, but it's just getting really bad,” Joe Markus said.
Rudy Markus pointed out a huge logjam in his section of the creek.The tangle of large trees and other debris is at least 20 feet high, rendering the creek bed invisible.“You can't go in and do anything with it or you'll get hurt,” he said.In the next rainstorm, more debris will catch on the logjam and make it worse as creek water flows onto his property because it cannot get through the dam.Discarded tires dot the creek as it wends its way past Rudy Markus' property.“Who wants to fish in this? It's a shame,” Rudy said.He recalls enjoying the creek when he bought the property in 1965 and throughout his younger years.“It was a nice, clean creek,” he said. “I used to have a rubber raft I could put in.”The men said the rushing water in heavy rain loosens the soil around the roots of trees on the bank, causing them to fall into the water, merge with other trees and debris, and create yet another dam.The trees also wash up into the yard. Rudy Markus said four or five specimens appear on his property each time there is a hard rain.“It tears the heck out of the grass,” he said.Their neighbor, Holly McAllister, has lived on her 20-acre property for 32 years.She suffered $25,000 damage to her home last fall when her basement was flooded.McAllister also has dams in the creek on her scenic property.“Everything piles up like Lincoln Logs on this S bend because where is it going to go?” she said.Adding to McAllister's problem is an unnamed tributary beside her house where runoff from the ditch across the road as well as from a huge culvert under a nearby railroad track spill into the tributary.
The small stream has eroded so much that an old gas line is exposed. McAllister said she didn't even know it was there when she bought her home.A wall made of railroad ties that McAllister erected as a barrier to the stream was completely dismantled in one storm and now sits in the willy-nilly pile where the water deposited it beside the stream.“We all take really good care of our places,” she said. “It's a shame that we can't get anyone to help us.”Jefferson Township crews have deposited stone where Thorn Creek has eroded to just a few feet from the road and performed other work, but the neighbors said until the many logjams are cleared, the creek will continue to flood.Ryan Harr, watershed resource specialist at Butler County Conservation District, said the trees that dam up in Thorn Creek represent the process of nature.
He is not aware of any agency that helps remove natural barriers inside creeks in Pennsylvania.“They can go in themselves and remove trees without taking equipment into the stream,” he said.Harr said much of the problem is that property owners mow their grass right up to the edge of the creek instead of allowing bushes and trees to grow on the bank.Shrubs and some trees, like willows, help to stabilize the dirt on the bank and prevent large trees from falling in.He pointed out the far bank of the tributary on McAllister's property, which is stable because of many trees and other plants.Harr conceded that the area has been the recipient of larger storm events in which many inches of rain can fall in a short time.“Then, bigger trees get washed into the streams,” he said.He said erosion causes widening of the creek naturally.“The Grand Canyon wasn't created because of development,” Harr said. “That was basically erosion.”He is aware that local creeks are cutting new paths and wishes property owners would allow for natural riparian borders if they live near a creek.“The Thorn and Connoquenessing, their banks aren't stable,” Harr said. “They cut and meander and do their thing.”He said the conservation district planned a few years ago to partner with the state Fish and Boat Commission on a project to work on Thorn Creek in the neighborhood where the Markuses and McAllister live, but one homeowner along the creek refused to participate, so the project was scrapped.Tom Decker, community relations coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Protection's northwest regional office, said property owners are responsible for clearing debris from the creeks that touch their properties.
He suggested those who live along a stream or creek download the DEP's Guidelines for Maintaining Streams in your Community, which is available online.Decker said other agencies can provide guidance to property owners who have a stream on their land.“Municipal and county governments, watershed organizations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Association, Federal Emergency Management Association, and other entities may have resources and assistance available for flood mitigation or stream stabilization projects,” Decker said.Joe Markus said he wants to organize a group of neighbors, students and environmentally concerned individuals to clean up Thorn Creek. “This is definitely going to cause some significant flooding,” he said, pointing at yet another huge tree that had fallen across the creek.
