High water in Kelsey Creek causes more bank erosion

The recent wet weather has has caused some more erosion along the banks of Kelsey Creek. The worst damage has occurred along the areas where the City of Bellevue did in-stream work last summer. I met with the city inspector who is assigned to the job and  we looked at the areas this morning. He took photos and will meet with City of Bellevue Storm and Surface Water engineers next week to see what can be done temporarily limit further damage. A long term solution will require more engineering, permits, and review by all of the governmental agencies that have jurisdiction over the stream. 

The photo above is along the 8th fairway about 175 yards from the green. This erosion occurred last weekend. 

Further erosion along the 8th tee. I'm not an engineer, but I could see that when all of this large woody debris was installed, the water would be diverted around it. A common sense solution would be to remove some of the stumps and let the flow stay in the channel, not make a new channel. Sometimes common sense is not so common.

West side of the creek on the 16th hole looking downstream.

East side of the stream directly across from the area in the last photo on 16. The City has hired a landscape contractor to maintain this planted area on 16 (for the next five years!). They will be replacing plants as needed, weeding (I can't wait to see how they manage all the Canarygrass and Knotweed) and general maintenance. 

Green-side irrigation head replacements underway

Part of our irrigation system upgrades for 2014 include replacement of all the green-side sprinkler heads. Each green has either 4, 5, or 6 full circle heads that water the green depending on it's size. There are also 4 or 5 part circle heads that are aimed away from the green that water the area around each green. We have a total of 192 heads to replace in the next month, each one taking about 45 minutes to change out.

The photo above shows Tim and Frank working on head relocation around #18 green. The 18th has been our most challenging green to maintain during the summer months. When it gets hot and the days are long in July, it requires a lot of hand watering to keep it from getting cooked. Since it was time to replace the green-side heads, we did some measuring on the sprinkler head spacing and found that we needed to make some changes. We found that there were three heads that were spaced too far apart causing a zone in the middle of the green that did not get adequate coverage. Tim and Frank figured out the best location for the heads and moved them to those spots. I'll report back this summer on the success of the changes we made to the head locations. Hopefully the better coverage will reduce the amount of daily hand watering required  on this green.   

Drainage next to #10 green

Recently we noticed the area behind and to the left of #10 green was getting very wet and muddy. This was a red flag since there had been no rainfall in over a week. We searched the area for clues as to where there was a possible irrigation or drainage issue, and found a small trickle of water coming up through the turf behind the green. 

We used the hose you see in the photo to try to clean out the exit line from the drain box shown at the bottom of the photo. No such luck. We ran a snake down the exit line and it got stuck about 25 feet from the box. Time to start digging. We dug a hole behind the green, found the line, and kept digging along the pipe until we found a section that was crushed. 

The pipe was installed twenty years ago when the green was built. It's amazing that it was able to run water all that time. Why did it get backed up now? We dug up the crushed section and put a snake in it and found the line crushed again another thee feet down.

 It was time to dig from the box all the way out and across the cart path behind #10 green. 

We also added a new section of drain line along the hill into the box. A new line was also installed from the box across the path discharging over the back of the road. We'll closely monitor this area to make sure it's working over the next several months.